Simple Game
by DragonOfGem
Summary: Touma makes a wager with Misaka, and they agree to a game of switching roommates for a week. Him being with Kuroko and her being with Index. Who will prevail in this bet? As they switch roommates, they will learn more about each other's lives and become closer with the opposite roommate and maybe even each other.
1. I - Proposition

**Umm, this is my first story of the Toaru series which I might add is a fantastic series and I've only seen both Railgun and Railgun S and Index Season 1 and 2. And I've read a decent amount of the manga for Railgun too so forgive me if I don't that much about other characters as I am still reading the novels. I guess you can say this takes place maybe...after the Daihasei Festival? The To Aru version of course, not the railgun manga version.**

 **Oh and umm...I don't own this series because like, I'm not that talented enough to come up with such a sick power like Imagine Breaker heh. If you are wondering about my other series then I'm sorry but most of them are on hold, except for the Sonic and WarioWare crossover which I will get back too.**

Kamijou Touma. The ever so unlucky high schooler of Academy City. There have been many average and unlucky students (protagonists) but his luck surely takes the cake.

And here he was now, walking home from the convenience store, with him slumped and carrying a single bag of bread and a box of cereal.

"Wow, I even managed to get a free box of cereal out of the bread I got today." For those of you who are not aware, this was one of Kamijou Touma's luckier days. Going to the convenience store was probably one of Touma's most fearsome enemies. If it wasn't forgetting to bring his wallet, then it was being caught up in the biggest line that would make even Lady Luck herself tear up a bit. Even if he somehow brought his wallet, he would then come up to the counter, and be told he was a dollar short. ONE DOLLAR SHORT.

Today however he was offered from a cashier in the store for a free box of cereal. Apparently this cashier was the mother of a child Touma had saved from some gang made of Level 0s. For sure, Touma was very surprised at the generosity, and accepted the gift with no complaints.

"I can't believe it...Index was right, this trip was worth it! I didn't even have to p-" He then abruptly sighs.

"Such misfortune..." Of course, Touma knew that good luck such as this will unfortunately not last long, and he was right for thinking that.

"-Hey you!" Cried out a familiar voice that Touma surely did recognize. He sighs again and turns around to see Misaka Mikoto, his self-proclaimed rival, who has constantly challenged him to fights over and over again.

"It's about time we finish this. Get ready to fight, unless you already admit defeat." She says as she crosses her arms and smirks oh so condescendingly. Touma in return would usually bark back and tell her to leave him alone, but he actually stares at her with a stoic type of glare.

"Hey umm...do you like have nothing better to do?"

"W-What?!"

"I mean, for someone as well-known as you, I figure you would have lots of friends. Can't you go hang out with them?" Misaka couldn't believe this. The way he was talking back to her was like talking to him was her only hobby.

"Of course I have friends! And you know that!"

"Ah so you do?"

"O-Of course!"

"Then you can't go hang out with them?"

"I would if I could you moron! I just so happened to see you, and plus most of them are busy."

"Like what?" He asked genuinely.

"Umm...well Kuruko and Uiharu are off doing some Judgement work. Saten-san is well...asleep."

"Sleep? It's 3:00, how is she still asleep?" Touma said quite shocked. Misaka sweat dropped a bit and sheepishly scratched her hair.

"Y-Yeah, she stayed up until 5:00am watching this one TV show. I forgot the name of it...Detective Cone?"

"You mean _Detective Conan?"_

Misaka snapped her fingers. "Yeah that's the one! How'd you know?"

"There was a time when I used to have a TV and used it to watch shows with."

"What? You don't have one anymore?"

"I do." He admitted. "It's just that Index hogs up the TV so I can never really watch anything. Plus I'm way too busy doing homework or well; putting my life on the line so that she is safe." He sighed at the sentence he just stated.

"Life is never easy for Kamijou Touma. Especially with that ignorant but slightly lovable roommate I have." He said bent back, causing the bag of his groceries to shake a little. He was expecting Misaka to laugh at his misfortune which is usually a daily based event, but she instead started to laugh.

"Please, if you think your roommate is bad, imagine living with someone like Kuroko." If he remembered correctly, Shirai Kuroko was in fact Misaka Mikoto's roommate. Despite being an underclassmen she somehow managed to become her roommate through "unpleasant" means. But Kuroko being worse than Index? Blasphemy.

"I don't know Miss Misaka Mikoto-san." He said quite condescendingly. "Index is quite the contender for most annoying roommate."

"Well does Index stare at you in the shower?" Misaka said. Touma tried to not laugh but couldn't hold it in. This was too easy for him.

"Is Shirai Kuroko a total slob who makes a mess out of practically anything?"

"Does Index carry around .wav files of your voice, and of you making suggestive noises?" Touma choked. She does what? He knew something seemed "off" about Misaka and Kuroko's relationship and he didn't think she took this whole obsession with Misaka to such an extent. Maybe he was the luckier one, but that would mean him losing and he didn't want that.

"Well Index makes me buy her all this expensive food, and I don't even get half of it!" Touma shouted.

Misaka was at a blank. There were plenty of umm "crude" things Kuruko would do around her, and even in public, and she didn't know which one would really make him think otherwise of who has the more annoying roommate.

But that didn't last long though.

"Kuroko smells my bed for the pure pleasure of it!"

Touma gulped a little. She was good. And it was true, after all when Touma had met up with her back at her dorm, she practically had her face on Misaka's pillow.

 _"That must've been her secret weapon...come on Kamijou Touma. Think! Think! Think! What happens on a regular basis?"_ He thought, then a lightbulb flicked in his head.

"AHA!" He said while pointing up. Misaka tensed up, waiting for her rival's next rebuttal.

"Well Index unreasonably bites my head until I start bleeding and fade into unconsciousness!" Misaka winced. She has witnessed it beforehand. Usually she would join in on beating up Touma but putting herself aside, she felt somewhat sympathetic. But that didn't last long as Misaka started to stretch her left arm and smirked.

"Heh, if you think something like that is bad, I'll tell you a lot more things that are even worse."

Touma dropped his groceries bag. Clearly this was practically a challenge invite.

"Bring it _BiriBiri-san_." He said with his Imagine Breaker fist tightly gripped, and a bit of emphasis on the word BiriBiri which Misaka clearly had noticed and wasn't exactly happy about it. The atmosphere had suddenly gotten thick and tense. So much so that practically everyone who was still on the street had immediately evacuated. The gazes of these two powerful students created the utmost tension as it seemed to have stopped everything from moving.

Touma cuffed his fist, staring intently at Misaka and waiting for her to make her move. Misaka started to have electricity emit out of her body, and waiting for the former to make his move. All in all, it was going to be an epic...verbal match? Suddenly however a car was speeding down the road, and it came to a complete stop seeing Touma and Misaka in the middle of an intersection.

"Hey! What the hell are you two doing in the middle of the damn road?!" The ruffian driver shouted outside his car window. Oh there were other cars too, but they were waiting for Touma and Misaka's stare down to finish. They were smart enough to know to not interfere with Tokiwadai's Railgun, and if she was staring seriously at Touma, then that would mean this was serious. It was understandable that this person does not know who Touma is, but not knowing who Misaka Mikoto is, is surely to bite him in the back.

"Hey you! Stupid hair! I don't know what staring contest you think you're having but you're not going to have it in the middle of the road!" He says as he slams the car door and walks over to Touma.

"Well? What do you got to say huh?!" He asked loudly in Touma's left ear but Touma wasn't exactly paying attention to him.

"What's wrong? Afraid I'll have a stronger come back?!" Touma asked mockingly.

"What about you? Afraid mine will be even better?!" Misaka equally retorted back. Needless to say, they both didn't really care about the ruffian's troubles right now.

"THAT'S IT!" The ruffian prepared to swing his right fist with all his might at Touma, but before he could even react Touma swiftly landed a straight left on him without even trying, and that causes him to fly right towards Misaka and...

BAM! Misaka left backhands the ruffian filled with a tiny bit of electricity, causing him to fly up to the top of a building, and he lands face first; not dead fortunately. Oh no, Misaka and Touma were not that oblivious when it came to restraining their abilities. Well Misaka anyways...although she can take it a bit too far at times. The other drivers now were no where even near to pushing their accelerator (XD). The scene that had just unfolded in from of them practically confirmed it. Get near them, and pay the consequences.

"Lalalala..." He utters as he drifts into unconsciousness at the top of the building.

"You know, I've got a better idea." Touma begins to speak as if nothing of importance had happened.

"Oh now?" Misaka asked, a bit curious as to what he was leading into.

"Since we both seem to be in the same situation, why don't we switch roommates?" Touma suggested. To Misaka, this was honestly one of his most weirdest yet slightly interesting ideas yet. Switching roommates? As in she being with Index and him being with Kuroko? What kind of switcheroo was he going for here? She clearly had no answer and decided to press on for more information.

"Switch roommates? I'm listening..." She said clearly intrigued.

"It's summer right? Seems like the plausible time to do this sort of thing. You don't really have any classes going on right now right?" Misaka nodded.

He smiled. "Alright, here's how it'll go down. Starting today, we'll be staying at each other's dormitory for the next week. I'll be staying at your dorm, and you'll be staying at mine. Whoever is able to last the whole week without wanting to change back is the winner."

"And I'm guessing whoever is unable to successfully last the whole week is the loser?" She asks to confirm.

"Correct."

"Uh huh..." She says slowly.

"Well what do you say?" He asks waiting for an answer. Misaka thought about it for a while. This could be her best chance at beating him at something. Switch roommates? Misaka practically laughed inside her head. Such an easy challenge for her. She was the third strongest Level 5 esper in Academy City. She wouldn't lose in such a silly competition. And to him of all people? If she were to lose this, then she wouldn't be able to look at herself again. She had to win, at all costs.

"Fine, I accept your challenge." Misaka replied.

"You mean it?" He asked, like a child getting their parent to buy them a toy.

Misaka's cheeks tinted red. "S-Sure, but only to beat you got it?!"

"Sure, sure." He responded. "So umm...we should probably start right now."

"Y-Yeah." She agrees a bit nervously. "So umm...I should head over to your dorm and you'll head over to mine?"

"That's right." Touma said. Touma and Misaka could both just feel the amount of awkwardness throughout this whole exchange. Touma originally thought in this head that it wouldn't be such a big deal but apparently that wasn't the case. He would be staying at a girl's dorm for the next 168 hours, but he honestly had no idea what he was in for. Not only would he have to deal with the ahem "Onee-Sama" cravings, he would also have to interact and socialize with the students at Tokiwadai Middle School. The all girls students at Tokiwadai Middle School. This would either be an easy or an extremely excruciating experience. Certainly he hadn't thought this through. On the other side of the spectrum, Misaka had no idea what to expect either. Unlike Touma who had been to Misaka's dorm, Misaka has never even been to Touma's dorm at all. So this would surely be a new experience for her too. But she would survive this childish game, she had too. Lose to him again? Not going to happen. But speaking of "survival", a major obstacle popped into Misaka's head.

"Ah damn that's right!" She exclaimed all of a sudden. Touma blinked in confusion.

"What's wrong?"

"The Dorm Manager!" She exclaimed again. Touma was still lost, although he felt like he heard that name before.

"How are we supposed to do this bet with her around? There's no way she would agree to this." Misaka uttered. Touma noticed she sure was making quite the big deal out of this person.

"It's just a silly bet, would she really have a problem with it?" Touma asked. Misaka shook her head almost instantly, with sweat coming down her face.

"No it's not you idiot! There's no way she would let this go that easily, and just what would the principal think?! _Oh hey, can I switch dorms with some boy into an all girl prestigious middle school for a whole week? Nothing too major right?_ No way she would agree to something as stupid as that!" She angrily argued. Touma a bit frightened decided to ask another question.

"Well the school problem aside, this Dorm Manager can't be all that scary right?" He wondered. Misaka's face looked completely horrified. As if he had seen the scary things she has done to Kuroko, he believed her instantly.

"O-Oh then that is a problem then." He said while messing with his white collar. He also didn't take into account that she was right in the fact that the school itself wouldn't really want something like this going on. He would need to think of something in order for this bet he so cleverly thought of to work out.

"You know let's just cancel this bet. I don't think we'll be able to do this anyway." Misaka advised. Sure she wanted to do this as much as Touma did, but if they really had to go all this trouble then maybe it was just a waste of time.

"Well if you really have zero confidence in winning then I guess it'd be pointless to do it anyway." He remarked. Veins started to pop out of Misaka's head and she marched in anger to him.

"What was that you bastard?!" She yelled in front his face.

"Easy, easy BiriBiri." He said, while changing his preference of what to call her for like the tenth time. "I just thought of a way for us to do this!"

"Huh?!" Misaka exasperated in shock, and stepped back about two feet. Just what the hell could he have come up with in the past few minutes that would easily resolve the issue?

-TOARU-

"-A summer school research project?" A certain tall brunette woman asked.

"Y-Yes. It's a summer project I have to do for class, about umm...researching the behaviors two people have when they are forced to switch roommates and see who can last a week. It's a science project you see." Touma informed.

"Alright." The brunette woman said, although not really convinced. Touma noticed this and proceeded to talk even further.

"Uh I know what you are thinking, and this is and in no means a joke." He assured her. "This really is a summer science project that my teacher has assigned for me to do. Isn't that right Komoe-Sensei?" He lightly nudged his 135cm teacher, who slowly nodded and yawned, undoubtedly tired.

Yes Kamijou Touma had gotten that desperate, and begged his teacher Komoe-Sensei to come attest to the Dorm Manager about the so called "project" so that Touma would be allowed to stay at the dorms for just one week. It was nighttime, about 10:00pm to be precise. The four of them had all been gathered in Tokiwadai Middle School's lobby.

It was quite the sight to behold, a stern faced supervisor, a nervous yet smiling Touma, a sleep-deprived Komoe-Sensei, and a Misaka with just a face of pure anxiety.

"So you're his teacher?" The Dorm Manager asked.

"Y-Yes." She replied softly and yawned once again. Now of course Komoe-Sensei would happily help Touma out without hesitation. After all, Komoe-Sensei was basically Touma's Academy City guardian, and often looked after him even after school hours. Although she was getting overwhelmed of him asking her for her assistance at night, as it seems to be a regular thing. She did however find it quite flattering that he comes to her for help.

"S-See? She is my teacher, and she really wants me to complete this project, right Sensei?" He quickly glanced to her, earning a slow nod. Maybe it would've been a smarter idea to have asked her to do this about perhaps 7 hours ago, of which Misaka had insisted him on doing, but unless he wanted Index to bite him to death due to starvation then he had best wait until Index was completely satisfied; which was now.

"Umm, so you are his teacher?" She asked once more. This did wake Komoe-Sensei up. Why was she asking her again she thought? She did just answer her right?

"A-As I said before. Regardless of what you may think, I am indeed his teacher." She answered, a bit with a higher volume than before. It's quite clear that question struck a nerve.

"U-Uh right." She said, losing her strict composure. To be fair however, The pink bunny pajamas and short height doesn't really sell her being older than at least 10 years old, much less a teacher.

"Well I understand that this is an important project for your student to complete, but I'm not sure we can do such things here. I would have assumed that this dorm switching would be limited to the students of your class." She questioned. Touma bit his lip and turned to Misaka and Komoe-Sensei hoping they both had something that could retort that.

"This wouldn't happen to be some excuse to have access to the girls dormitory, just so you could enjoy being in a school filled with girls and seeing them in bathing suits and what not, and you forced this "teacher" of yours to do as you say?" She reprimanded. Touma just stood at her, just in shock. Such an unbelievably outrageous claim she had just made. Was that really the impression he made on people? He shook his head and denied her statement.

"N-No of course not! I would never! It's just uh-my classmates already all have partners to switch with. I was unlucky enough to forget about this whole project and was sort of left out heh, so I asked my good pal BiriBi-Misaka to switch dorms with me. After all we're practically best friends." Touma said desperately trying to persuade her.

"That's right!" Komoe-Sensei jumped in. "Kamijo-chan would never do something like that! Such a false statement, how rude can you be? Don't ever make such false accusations like that!" She said, her eyes filled with anger..

The brunette supervisor had lost all of her composure after that one.

"Umm well I'm sorry if I offended you both." She apologized rather awkwardly.

"Ah! Sensei you actually care that much about me?" Touma said, earnestly smiling in response to his teacher's protection of his credibility.

"Why of course Kamijo-chan. She is saying bad things about you, and as your mother I must respond in defense of my child."

"Uh well...I already have a mother actually."

Misaka internally face-palmed. This was getting way too out of hand. Touma at this rate was pretty much rolling with whatever came out of his mouth and Komoe-Sensei was doing more harm than good. But honestly to her, this was the first time that she had seen the Dorm Manager this flustered. In her own domain no less. It was actually something interesting to see. She actually wanted to do this bet even more now, seeing how dedicated Touma is to doing it.

"O-Of course. He's like a stupid brother to me. You wouldn't believe the amount of begging he did in order for me to agree to this, and as his lovely and amazing companion. I was happily able to accept." Misaka bragged, though a bit harsh with her word choice as Touma gave her a quick annoyed glance. Normally she isn't really arrogant, but around Touma it ups a few levels.

"I figured Shirai was rather close to you Misaka-san. I can't see her actually agreeing with what you are proposing." Naturally if Kuroko were to find out about this, then Touma's body would be in the cemetery, not even buried in the ground, just in the cemetery. Touma was just sweating thinking about it, Luckily Misaka had an easy answer to this.

"Umm well, she did agree to it. I told her that it would really help if she could help out my deadbeat, stupid, jerk of a friend over here, and help him barely pass his science class, and as the amazing friend she is, she would do it without a second thought. You know how dedicated she is to me." She boasted with a bit of pride, though with some harsh word choice yet again that gained another annoyed look from Touma. But If Touma could say one thing, it was that she was a pretty impressive liar.

"Tone it down would you, Princess Of All Electromasters." Touma mocked, giving her yet another alias.

"What was that?!" She glared at him. "I'll kick your ass for that!" She said gripping him by his shirt.

The brunette supervisor sighed, as she was sort of getting tired of this exchange.

"Anything to add umm...Komoe-san?" The brunette asked, actually sweating a bit.

"Well as for what you asked me earlier, it is not limited to just the students of my class, there is the exception of if a student does not have a partner, they are allowed to have a partner from another school, as long as it's a fellow student and said student consents with the idea." The Dorm Manager gave a quick look to an extremely pissed off Misaka, still gripping Touma with him desperately trying to escape into freedom.

"Well Misaka?" She said looking for a reply. Misaka dropped Touma on the floor and nodded. She looked back to Komoe-Sensei, to let her finish her explanation.

She continued on. "They will get extra credit points as well, if they actually switch with a student who is from a different grade level entirely." She swiftly answered. "Also the esper level of said student can factor in as well, and with Touma's partner being the third strongest Level 5 in Academy City, he would surely get a high number of extra credit points for that."

Touma jumped back up from the floor in a matter of milliseconds. "T-That's right! I uh, just forgot to mention that part before! Right Misaka-san?" He asked his short haired friend.

"Y-Yeah." She said with a nervous smile on her face. On the inside however she just sighed. She hardly could take any much more of this ridiculousness. Obviously Komoe-Sensei was just making things up as she went along, and Touma was just agreeing with nothing really to add. Though if she had to give her some credit, at least she seemed to have some decent amount of persuasion skills, unlike her spiky haired friend standing next to her.

"So umm...what do you say?" Misaka asked with some worry in her eyes.

The Dorm Manager was just tired at this point and didn't even bother to think real hard about this so called _project_.

"Well, aside from your student's questionable behavior, this doesn't seem too drastic of a joke." She said, clearing her throat. She fixed her composure rather quickly from Komoe-Sensei's earlier outburst.

"Very well, I'll talk to the principal of the school and see what she has to say about this proposition." She declared. Both Touma and Misaka's faces lit up when she said those words. Yes even Misaka will still excited despite the odd steps to achieving this bet.

"You mean you actually don't mind?!" They both asked (shouted) in unison.

"Well I'll admit this seems to be somewhat of a weird _project,_ but it's not like you are actually doing any real harm to our school. And since I have gained the consensus of your teacher, it's not like your doing this out of your own accord so, I'll talk to her about this matter, and if she says yes you'll be allowed to stay here for a week." Touma was so happy he could just jump onto the Dorm Manager and give her hug, but he had too much common sense to not do something so deadly.

"Yes!" Touma shouted out in glee and offered Misaka a high five to which she gives back, but this did give them a weird glance from the Dorm Manager.

"Uh, I thank you for this opportunity ma'am. I won't make a fuss I promise." He said while bowing.

"Yes well, say that once you're proposition has been accepted at all." She said as she walked away onto the elevator of the school.

The three of them stood there for a good 2 minutes or so until Touma finally started to speak.

"Heh well, we sure lucked out there huh?" This earned him a jab to the head from Misaka.

"You idiot!"

"Such misfortune!" He shouted out in pain. For some strange reason nowadays Touma doesn't even say ouch, instead he automatically says his catchphrase as his replacement word for ouch.

"I don't want to hear anything about luck from you of all people! I can't believe you did this, we could've been killed!" She roared. Of course she was just exaggerating, they wouldn't actually be killed but you get what she meant. Touma however out of surprise actually retaliated and bopped her on her head.

"H-Hey what was that for!" She grasped her head in pain with a comical tear coming down from her eye. His light bop to the head actually hurt Misaka more than she thought it would.

"I feel like I didn't deserve that-thank you very much, and besides you're supposed to fire electricity at me and I negate it, not actually be physical with me. That's my element." He said, albeit offended.

"Whatever." She said, too tired to even argue back with him. At this point she actually felt some sympathy for the Dorm Manager, despite being utterly terrified of her earlier. She rubbed her head a bit, and proceeded to sit down on one of the lobby's small tan couches.

Komoe-Sensei began to yawn again. She was actually dead tired. The reason for this drowsiness was due to going a _tad_ bit crazy with the drinks a couple of hours prior, and she really wanted to get some more sleep.

"Kamijo-chan I can go home now right?" She asked.

"Ah yeah. Thank you Sensei, I really appreciate it. I wouldn't have been able to do this without your help." He sincerely thanked her.

Komoe-Sensei although tired, was able to give him a bright smile. "Oh no problem Kamijo-chan. Just don't be afraid to call me for any more help okay?" Touma nodded.

She prepared to make her way out the school's doors. Though she stopped halfway as she thought of something.

"Make sure to brush your teeth before you go to sleep." She reminded him in a motherly tone.

"Don't worry I will." He said sheepishly. She smiled and began to make her way back to the door but stopped again.

"Make sure not to stay up too late."

"Uh okay."

She finally made her way to the door and stopped once her hand reached the handle.

"Don't forget to wear unde-"

"I get it already! Don't say anything else please!" He cut her off before she could finish the final word.

"Well bye." She waved and stepped outside the school's doors and disappeared into the darkness of the night.

Touma just sighed. If you had the greatest hearing in the world you could hear him mutter "Such Misfortune" about 3 times.

"That Komoe-Sensei..." He started. She sure was a handful but he truthfully was thankful of her. After all 90% of this plan depended on her.

"Hey."

"What?" He turned around, hearing Misaka's voice.

"Come sit over here." She requested pointing to the space next to her. Touma blinked once, a bit perplexed.

"Why?" He asked quite annoyed.

"Just do it!" She snapped. Touma quickly ran over and lazily plopped onto the spot next to her. Misaka moved over some to gain some extra room, also to stop her face from turning into a cherry. They sat next to each other in silence for a good while. Misaka was staring at her knees, blushing extremely due to the spiky haired boy next to her, while he was doing was looking away to the other side observing the lobby's interior.

"You know, now that I'm actually looking at it...this school looks extremely nice in comparison to mine." Just the lobby itself looked like something you would see in a famous mansion, as the decorations looked very high class with it's golden ribbons on its walls. It had a very nice wall color too, the same as the couch itself.

"Hmph, well our school is about 50 times better than yours will ever be. This is Tokiwadai Middle School after all." She said crossing her arms. Touma just rolled his eyes.

"Hey umm, I know you're probably annoyed with me and all, but I just wanted to say-well, thanks for sticking with me and all." He said with a happy grin on his face. Misaka hated that grin of his so much, but it truthfully made her feel good about what she and him did today.

"U-Umm well, it was n-nothing that's all. I definitely only did this because I want to beat you!" She cried, pointing her index finger in Touma's face.

"Yeah I know." He reassured her. "Honestly, I don't normally do this sort of thing. It's just well...it's been a long time since I've had this much fun you know. I mean, it's not like I'm not happy with my current life now, but I kind of missed the times when I didn't have to worry about constantly running into danger you know. I mean due to my luck, I was already running into that amount of danger anyways. So, I guess I sort of think it's something I've missed that's all." He admitted.

Misaka could not help but feel all sympathy for that statement. While she hated his guts, obviously that was a front, and they both knew that. This was probably the first time she's seen him this happy. Usually he would just have nervous and annoyed look on his face due to his luck, but he seemed to be enjoying himself when he was talking to her about this challenge. I guess anybody would feel the same way he felt, if danger was always lurking around everywhere he went. After all she knows the amount of danger he gets into on a regular basis, and his choice of not letting others help him makes it a real pain in the ass for her and for many other people who care about him. The fact that she herself is one of the strongest espers in Academy City, but he would rather make sure she is safe then ask her for help, really pushes her buttons, even more so than Misaki Shokuhou. Okay maybe not to that extent she thought to herself.

But actually she can somewhat relate to him. Back during the Level 6 incident, she took it upon herself to save her clones without any help from anyone else. She couldn't tell them about it, the amount of danger they would get in would surely be intense. She couldn't even tell her best friend Kuroko about it, despite Kuruko being smart enough to know that that something terrible was going on. She still hasn't told them to this day about the clones and she holds a major amount of guilt because of it. And ironically, it was Touma himself who came to her rescue. She still feels immense gratitude for him getting involved in the project, even though he had absolutely no reason to intervene in the first place.

That is something Misaka Mikoto would never forget.

"You know can I tell you something?" She asked.

"What's up?" She punched him in his side.

"Such misfortune! Why did you-"

"Listen." She began. "If you think I'm mad about you doing all this dangerous stuff on your own without help then you shouldn't." Touma looked at her, . He didn't really understand why she was bringing this up all of a sudden.

"To be honest, I'm not one to talk about that sort of thing anyway. I mean back with the whole "Ascension To Level 6" plan for the number one esper, I hid everything about it from my friends, and I refused to ask them for help. I felt like I could handle it on my own you know? I didn't need to bother them and have their lives at risk because of my problem. After all the clones we're created because of my genes." She said, clenching her fist.

"Misaka..." Touma began to speak but was shortly interrupted.

She smiled. "I then learned that it is okay to ask for help, because in the end, sometimes you can't just do everything by yourself you know. If it wasn't for you, I probably would've been killed-alongside with even more of my sisters if you hadn't shown up." She was willing to admit this, after all it was true. Touma intervention, saved more innocent lives than he probably thought he did. Unbeknownst to him, his presence also changed the esper who was responsible for the clones' deaths.

"You talk about how you have such misfortune, but the luck of you figuring out what was going on actually saved a lot of people." Touma wasn't really one who liked to be in the spotlight. He didn't save people just because of it, he saved them because there should be no reason not to save someone. This much praise he was getting he felt like he didn't really want it.

"So you still haven't told them about your sisters yet huh?"

"I can't. I just don't want them getting involved into something dangerous if they are targeting again." Touma nodded, completely understanding her wanting to keep her friends out of danger.

"I see..." He trailed off before Misaka got back to her original topic.

"I guess in short, I just wanted to say that I don't blame you for wanting to do things by yourself." Misaka's sympathetic smile suddenly changed into an angry frown. "But..."

Touma yelped, jumping a little out of his seat wondering what he had done wrong by only listening to her. "W-What is it?!"

"Just..." She turns away with a red face. "Don't forget that if you ever need help you have me a-alright?" She meekly uttered, barely audible. But Touma heard it alright, and was blushing as well.

He rubbed his head sheepishly and focused his gaze on something other than the middle schooler sitting next to him. "I-I know. And well thanks."

"-Kamijou!" Yelled a voice coming from near the elevator. Touma and Misaka quickly stopped their awkward conversation and quickly ran over to where the voice was coming from, only to be led to the Dorm Manager.

"Ah you're back! What did they say?" He bleated, curious to know if they didn't do all this for nothing.

"Well, unfortunately it would seem that she has actually agreed to this project of yours." She answered.

"Are you serious?! That's so-wait unfortunately?" Touma had the feeling that he was not liked by her. Just a feeling.

"She seems very interested as to how you will fit in during this whole week." She clicked her tongue.

"That damn principal, oh she's a curious one alright. I can't believe she agreed to this." She says cuffing her fists. Misaka stepped back in fear, and Touma just hid behind Misaka, frightened, clearly realizing why Misaka is so scared of her.

"Anyways, I gave her your approval and since Misaka has completed most of her studies, she will be allowed to move into your dorm while you can stay in hers." She announced. Misaka and Touma both sighed but this time of relief. It's taken them this long but they were finally going to be able to do this bet they set to do about 8 hours ago.

"Now what?" He asked.

"Well I guess I should take you to the room." Misaka replied. They began to start walking towards the elevator until the Dorm Manager had something to say to Touma.

"Kamijou!" She shouted. He immediately did a quick 180 and stood in perfect posture, which had Misaka amazed.

"Yes! I am Kamijou Touma! What is it that you ask of me?!"

"I will say one thing. If you so much as even attempt to show us your hidden intentions, I will make sure you _permanently_ won't ever have them again." She threatened, oozing bloodlust. If the lobby was suddenly filled with water, it would be from Touma's sweat.

"I-I swear!" He answered with no hesitation. It wasn't even directed towards Misaka and even she was sweating.

"Very well, you may be on your way."

"Umm, thank you for everything." He bowed once again. Misaka walked over to the elevator and pushed a button for it to open up. Touma slowly staggered onto the elevator, still feeling the aftermath of the Dorm Manager's malice. Misaka let him in first and she followed soon after, having the doors closed after them. She pressed a button, indicating the floor she needed to go to and they waited until they heard a beep noise, meaning they had arrived at their designated floor.

Misaka walked out the elevator but Touma was still inside.

"Get out of their you big baby." She called out. Touma walked out, still frightened.

"And you have to deal with her everyday? I have the highest amount of condolences for you." He said. Misaka nodded with a empathetic smile. "Yeah I know what you mean, but now you're going to have to deal with her everyday." Touma grimaced, knowing she was exactly right. It was actually a long time since they actually talked about the bet itself, so as they walked to Misaka's dorm they had a conversation about it.

"Heh, since you've seen the school life I have to go through, you should realize that I'm going to win this with ease." She said.

"While I'll admit that this was way more hellish than I expected, spending time with Index isn't going to be a fun experience."

"Ha!" She pointed. "You think that's hellish? Kuroko isn't exactly someone you would ever get along with."

"Don't you worry, I'll found a way to get along with her." He claimed. They had finally arrived at the door.

"Come to think of it, you'll probably need your clothes and stuff right?" He asked.

"Oh right. Well what about you?"

"Well, I think I'm fine with the clothes I have on now, I'll just wash them I guess." He said referring to his school uniform.

Misaka breathed in and out and smirked. "Sure you don't want to back out now while you still can?"

"There is absolutely no way I'm giving up now. After all I've done to get this far." He said clenching his fists, ready for almost anything. Except the Dorm Manager of course.

"Well here goes." She opened the door, revealing the contents inside of it. Suddenly a short pigtailed girl sprang out from the room.

"Onee-Sama! You have returned!" She said hugging her precious self-proclaimed lover. Or at least that's what she thought she was hugging before opening her eyes and realizing that she was hugging Touma instead of Misaka.

"E-Eh?" Kuroko just stared at Touma's face, and with a delayed reaction...she slapped him dead on the face and stumbled onto the floor.

"Such misfortune..." He said, stunned back with a glowing red hand on his cheek.

"Onee-Sama! Why have you returned here with this ape with you?" Kuroko angrily asked her short haired best friend. She had a million questions as to what was going on here, but the main question was _why exactly was he here?_

"Uh well, you see Kuroko uh...well it's kind of hard to say."

"Oh Onee-Sama you can tell me anything that troubles you, even if it does involve that ape." She then had a realization.

"Ah! Don't tell me this ape is the one who has you upset!" She narrowed her eyes at Touma who just thought it would be a great idea to just not say anything.

"N-No it's not him! Umm it's not that I'm troubled by anything."

"Then what is the problem t-"

"Well uh...what if I were to tell you that umm...you would be sharing a room with him for one week?"

Kuroko laughed. She had to admit, her Onee-sama sure was quite the jokester. Obviously this was just a joke and nothing more.

"That's very humorous Onee-Sama, if you were worrying about how I would react to your joke, then even if it was god awful I would laugh no matter what." She declared as if she was one of those lovers from those soap operas. Misaka and Touma looked at each-other with great uncertainty of if this was really a good idea.

"Umm...but Kuroko, I'm not lying." She admitted.

Kuroko laughed even harder. "Onee-Sama stop it please!" She said somehow laughing and moaning at the same time. "I don't know how much more I can take of this!" She kept laughing until she saw that both Misaka and Touma weren't exactly laughing either.

"Eh...so umm, you were telling the truth?" She asked hoping to be wrong. They both nod.

"Ehh?!" She blurted out in fear.

 **They finally get to the bet! What will happen? Will Kuroko actually unleash her fury on Touma? Or how will Index deal with Misaka? Uh I hope Touma survives because I actually like writing his character lol.**

 **This sure was a long one. I didn't mean to make it that long. If you have any ideas of what you would like to see happen during this switcheroo, then feel free to share your thoughts. :)**


	2. II - Moving Out

"O-Onee-Sama! Why?! Why?!." Kuroko moaned, as she was grasping onto Misaka's legs as she was looking for shirts to put in her suitcase.

"I've told you this for about the tenth time Kuroko!" Misaka growled, clearly frustrated. "I'm going to be staying in his room for a week, and he's going to be staying in mine. How else can I make that clear?!"

Once Misaka had told her the news, she had passed out for about a good five minutes. Then she woke up again, having completely forgotten what had happened 5 minutes prior, and this time Touma answered her. She then proceeded to punch him in the gut and she passed out for about a good _ten_ minutes.

Kuroko's preference for her shutting down time span must depend on the person it would seem. At least, that's what Touma had learned.

"But you cannot!" She said looking up with teary eyes. "We are bound together by the red string of fate! We can't be separated! After all, we still need to discuss plans for our childr-"

"Discuss it with someone else!" She raged as she forcefully swung her leg upward and sent Kuroko flying into the bookcase of their dorm. Touma had just watched in awe, as Kuroko had painfully made an unfortunate collision with the shelf and was growing a rather impressive bump on her head. For a second, Touma thought he heard her mutter something about _"How cute it is that Onee-Sama plays hard to get"._ But he thought it would be wise to just not think too much about it.

"U-Umm...is she going to be okay? That looked like it would damage some brain cells." He asked, surprisingly concerned for her wellbeing.

Misaka huffed. "As if that idiot had any brain cells to being with." If Touma had seen the amount of times Kuroko had been shocked by Misaka, then he wouldn't have asked that question in the first place. It was shocking (XD) in of itself that she wasn't immune to electricity by now. Then again, there was also a certain trio that chases after an electric mouse that would say otherwise.

"A-And...how long did you say you would be gone?" Kuroko winced, as she couldn't even stand up.

"I just said a week Kuroko." She answered.

 _"I just said a week Kuroko."_ At this point of time, it looked like Shirai Kuroko was about to have a heart attack, but she clenched her chest and she somehow managed to not cross over to the next world.

Somehow.

Touma and Misaka were not sure how she did it either as they both had a bewildered glance.

"B-B-But-" She stuttered until Touma struck up a conversation, making her silent.

"You sure do have a lot of stuff." Touma said, lightly jumping up and down on Misaka's bed. At the moment, Misaka was currently packing her things in her suitcase so she can get ready to go to Touma's dorm. Apparently Touma was fine with just having the clothes he had on now, his usual orange t-shirt, and his school uniform.

"Heh, are you jealous?" She teased.

"I'm not." He said glancing around, but he saw something green behind her pillow. He took it out and it revealed itself as a fourteen inch, _gekota_ plush.

"Oh hey, you even have a plush of this guy huh?"

"Gimme that!" Misaka yanked the plush out of his hands with tremendous speed, as Touma hadn't even realized what had happened for a good five to six seconds.

"Why did you just snatch it out my hands?"

"It's off limits that's why! Don't you see what this is?!" She had said pointing vigorously at the plush. Touma blinked about five times staring at it, but couldn't really see what was special about it.

"Umm...a _gekota_ plush?"

"Don't you see?! This is the limited edition _gekota plush cape version_!" She beamed, as if she had true happiness in the palm of her hand.

"Cape version?" He asked confused. Misaka pressed a small button on the back of the plush's head, and it revealed that it had a back compartment and the cape came out of it. She moved the plush around like it was an airplane.

"After all this was the very last one they had selling and I got it for free! Oh _Gekota_ how I love you so much!" She said that last part as if she was singing. Touma just looked at her, feeling a bit uneasy.

"Y-You really do love that mascot don't you? Isn't that kind of childish though?"

That smile had rapidly turned into a frown. "There's nothing childish about liking _Gekota_." Unfortunately Kuroko who was still silent, actually agreed with what Touma had said. Though he was called an ape for a reason, so it's not like she would say it out loud.

Misaka gently placed her Gekota plush back into her suitcase.

"So hey about the bet, should we have some rules?" He asked, wanting to hear her opinion.

"Rules? What did you have in mind?"

"Well for starters, maybe we could have a no cheating rule."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, if we think about it. One of us could easily not stay in the dorm at all, and the other wouldn't know right? That would sort of ruin the whole point of the _project_ right?" He said, somewhat making fun of himself.

Misaka couldn't help but snicker at him saying project. "Well you're not exactly wrong. But cheating? That's the kind of stuff you would try to do." Misaka mocked.

"Hold on, don't you kick the vending machine in order to get your drink? That's cheating isn't it? You even said it didn't you?" He asked, having seen this take place numerous times. He still to this day wonders why that vending machine hasn't been replaced yet.

"W-Well sure it is _cheating._ But I _do_ put my quarter inside the stupid machine, and since it's a money eater I'm forced to get my drinks out the hard way." Misaka had been dealing with that damn vending machine for years. She knows how diabolical the thing is, and how it hurts the souls of many people during the summer. No way she was going to fall into its tyranny.

"I-I know. That thing is just truly evil. It ate my 2,000 yen like it was nothing." Touma put his hand onto his face and began to sob in shame.

"Dammit! Will it stop at nothing until it gets what it wants?!" He cried out for an answer. Misaka joined in on the cry fest and clenched her fist with resolve.

"Once this bet is over, we're going to have to team up if we want to eliminate that sadistic monster, filled with refreshing drinks."

Touma clenched his fist as well. "Of course. it can't get away with what it's done to many innocent people."

Kuroko had watched the two as they had talked back and forth. Their childish and nonsensical banter had her literally sweating. They were talking as if they were very close friends. She felt utterly heartbroken. Which almost happened about ten minutes ago coincidentally.

She grasped her two pigtails in irritation. _"O-Onee-Sama_ , _how could you?! I cannot understand this relationship you have with this young man. Just why? The person you should be talking with is me!"_

Misaka closed her suitcase, and zipped up all the pockets of it, indicating she was done.

"Ah you're finished packing?" Touma asked.

"Yeah, I think I got everything I need. You better not be planning on looking for some suggestive things after I leave." She warned. However Touma threw it back at her.

"Maybe I should warn you of doing the same." He said.

Her face became noticeably flustered. "O-Of course I wouldn't! Y-You pervert!" She said as she was about to storm off. This brought Kuroko out of her thoughts.

"W-W-W-W-W-Wait Onee-Sama!" She could barely speak much less walk as she hastily went towards Misaka.

"I just don't understand, what is the purpose of this? She asked frantically, not really understanding the whole reason for the switching.

"It's to show that idiot over there that I can win at his stupid game!"

"Why is this ape so important for you to beat?!"

"H-He's not important to me!" She said trying to cover her blushing face.

"W-Well with you gone, what am I supposed to do?!"

"Oh umm...stay here." She answered simply.

"S-S-Stay here?! You want me to stay here with this troglodyte for an entire week?!" She said pointing to Touma in disgust.

"T-That's pretty harsh." Touma had said, joining the conversation. He was lucky that he had the word troglodyte from his classmate Fukiyose Seiri before when they were on a school field trip once, otherwise he wouldn't have known he was insulted.

"You stay out of this!" Kuroko spat in annoyance.

"W-What did I do to deserve this much painful treatment?!" She uttered in despair.

"You want me to be honest?" Misaka offered, most likely having a complete list history of the things Kuroko had done to her. That wasn't really helping Kuroko though.

"Am I really that annoying?!" She said as began to sob. Misaka had told her practically everything about the bet, basically her and Index being the main focal point of it. She could've easily had just told her the lie she had told to the principal and the Dorm Manager, but she just felt tired of lying to her friends. Her best friend especially, and she figured she would be fine with being called annoying, I mean after all she's called an idiot like everyday.

After thinking all that Misaka just sighed, and walked over to Kuroko and put her hand on her shoulder.

"Listen Kuroko, don't be upset. I'll only be gone a week after all. And besides who knows, maybe you'll annoy him so much it'll make him want to leave as quick as possible." She said, making a cocky smirk at Touma.

"I have ears you know." He muttered.

"O-Onee-Sama. If you want I can stop being annoying. I will try at my utmost ability!" She lamented. This was starting to make even Misaka sad. The fact that she is willing to try so much in order for her to stay made her feel real sorry for her. She was her best friend after all.

"Hey come on, you're a member of Judgement aren't you?" Misaka smirked. Her Onee-Sama was right, she was a member of Judgement. Kuroko held great pride at being someone who stops poachers in Academy City, and there was no way she couldn't handle something like this.

She straightened herself up and looked Misaka dead in the eye. "You are absolutely correct as always Onee-Sama. Very well, if you really want me to stay with this ape for a week, then by all means I will do it."

Misaka chuckled. "Thank you." Touma looked at them with a warm smile. Their friendship almost reminded him of his relationship with his two friends; Tsuchimikado Motoharu and Aogami Pierce, well putting the whole ape thing aside anyways. Come to think of it, Misaka would probably be running into them wouldn't she? Oh she was in for a ride with those two.

"Well I'm off." Misaka was opening the door before Touma noticed something she had left on her bed.

"Hey, you forgot something!" He said pointing to something near her bed.

"What is it?" She asked.

"It's your weird, bear plush with the bandages and eye-patch." Touma remembered seeing this when he had visited Misaka's dorm for the first time. He'll give it credit for storing the information that led to saving Misaka's life, but aside from that it was just very weird.

"Oh, I almost forgot it." She said, hurrying over to where Touma was. Kuroko was smiling, albeit creepily at her dear friend.

 _"Ah Onee-Sama. How forgetful you are. Sooner or later you'll forget to put on your clothes as well."_ She thought to herself as she covered her hand and she giggled at the naughty thoughts popping into her head.

 _"But that's funny, because if I remember correctly Kuma Onee-Sama has a compartment in it's stomach, and I previously remember storing my collection of Onee-Sama's precious panties in there."_ She recalled in her head. She had actually been putting a panty in there everyday, sort of like saving currency in a banking account. She was actually surprised that Misaka hadn't found out about it yet, seeing as how she had a limited amount of panties nowadays.

A good five or ten seconds have passed before Shirai Kuroko had made a realization.

Her eyes widened as she had repeated that thought in her head.

 _"ONEE-SAMA'S PRECIOUS PANTIES!"_ She yelled internally. As if anything else could go wrong in her life as of the past hour, that was surely something that would take the whole cake. Nervousness flooded through her body as she thought of the amount of things that could happen in a situation such as this. If Misaka were to open that plush up at this very moment, it would result in a very torturous, insufferable and agonizing death. She had to get the plush back at all costs.

"Onee-Sama! You can't take that plush!" She demanded as she hurriedly ran over to Touma and Misaka.

"Why not?"

"Uh...well you already have your child-amazing _gekota_ plush right?" She was hoping Misaka didn't hear that word she was about to say, but she didn't seem to notice at all.

"Well..."

"What's wrong with having two plushes?" Touma chimed in.

Kuroko gulped. _"You mindless ape! Now you decide to open your mouth_ , _out of all times?! Now?!"_

"I guess your right." Misaka said, about to grab the plush from Touma's hands.

 _"This can't happen! I must not let it happen!"_ Kuroko thought to herself, already feeling her life slip away from her the closer Misaka comes to touching that plush.

"W-Wait! You can't!" She pleaded.

"Why do you care so much Kuroko?" Misaka asked, starting to get annoyed.

"W-Well umm you see..." She then thought of the perfect cover up.

"Ah well that's simple. With you being gone for a week, I need something to remember you by while you are on your absence. You don't mind right?" She asked. Misaka thought about it for a while, and well it wasn't like she had a problem with it.

"Well I guess if she wants it as some sort of reminder of you." Touma suggested, insisting on her to take the plush. Misaka simply nodded. Kuroko clicked her tongue at the sight of these two.

 _"Tch, do no think you're special because Onee-Sama graces you with her agreement."_ Besides her obvious irritation with Touma, she was very happy, and could breathe easy. She had successfully saved herself from sudden death.

There was no possible way anything could go wrong now. She had closed her eyes in bliss, after achieving pure victory.

"Well fine I suppose if you want it so badly." She said motioning Touma to give her the plush. Touma however noticed something odd about the plush.

"Hold on, I think one of the bandages is bulging out." As he was removing the bandage off of the plush in order to place it back on again, suddenly a bunch of special items had bounced out of the plush and onto the floor. When Touma's gaze had landed on whatever fell out, he blushed like crazy and stepped back like two feet.

"P-P-Panties?!" He stammered, not really expecting that to come out of a stuffed bear. He looked over to Misaka, whose eyes were glued to the floor and her face was as red as a strawberry. She quickly turned to Touma.

"Don't look!" She yelped in embarrassment.

Touma's face was already covered by his arm. "Y-Yeah! I knew that plush weird, but who the hell would stuff panties in a plush in the first place?!"

As much as she wanted to blame Touma, there was no possible way he could've done it.

No, there was only one other suspect who would do something of this level of perversion.

Her eyes locked onto Shirai Kuroko, emitting vicious murderous intent. So much so that Touma could practically feel the amount of pressure coming from Misaka.

However Kuroko, who still had her eyes closed, had yet to realize that Misaka had figured out what she had done to her plush. She was still humming her victory of being able to successfully persuade her to give her the plush.

"Kuroko..." She grumbled intensely, trying to get her attention.

"Oh what is it Onee-Sama?" She asked, finally opening her eyes to a furious Misaka Mikoto.

"Ah you seem angry, just what seems to be the pro-" Her eyes made contact with the floor as she saw the 30 pairs of panties on the ground.

Her delayed reaction to the amount of trouble she was about to be in, resulting in her smiling brightly at the floor for about a good minute.

Misaka cracked her knuckles, and as Kuroko heard that, her face literally turned white.

"Oh look at the time!" She nervously said, looking at her non-existent watch. "It's 11:30pm, you should get going soon Onee-Sama, it's getting very late."

"Oh but Kuroko, I actually forgot something you know." She said with a very unsettling smile on her face.

"O-Oh don't worry Onee-Sama I'll go find it for you!" Kuroko said as she was about to get something, until Misaka cut her off.

"Oh but don't you see Kuroko, I've already found it."

"A-And what might this thing be if I may ask?" Kuroko had asked the question, but she had a pretty good idea what the answer was.

Her inevitable death.

-TOARU-

"Here, take the stupid key!" Misaka said, practically shoving the dorm key into Touma's chest.

"No need to shove it Biribiri."

The two were currently outside of the dorm. Misaka had gotten her suitcase ready to go and was waiting for Touma to give directions to his dorm.

"-You should see a sign that labels "Boys Dormitory" and you'll see an eight-story building. My dorm is on the seventh floor, and you should be able to see my name plate on my door."

"Alright, so, the seventh floor. Got it." She said and then proceeded to smirk.

"Heh, now we can officially start this stupid bet. Of which of course I will win." She boasted yet again with extreme confidence in her abilities as a Level 5 esper.

"Oh you just keep thinking that." He quipped, tired of her saying she'll win over and over again.

"Well, we'll see who's crying back to their own dorm." She said as she walked away over to the elevator, still within Touma's vision.

"Heh...good luck." She said as pushed the button, and entered the elevator.

Touma had sighed, probably for the twentieth time today. He was so dedicated to doing this bet to have some fun, yet he was already tired and felt like this week would never end. And it was technically only Day 1. But it was almost 12am, so maybe he was just tired of all the stuff he did today. He walked over to the dorm labeled 208; inputted the key Misaka gave him and opened the door, revealing a...

Charcoaled Kuroko hugging Misaka's bear plush. Touma gave a nervous look to the Judgment member as he had witnessed the hell she had been given. There was electric shocks everywhere inside the dorm as Misaka unleashed her wrath of Kuroko. Touma had tried numerous times to escape by using the door, but he never got a chance to as he had to pull out his Imagine Breaker to cancel out the electricity every time it came towards him. That left him pretty unscathed, but Kuroko had to withstand every single attack for a _long_ thirty minutes. To Kuroko, the amount of repeated electric shocks to every part of her body made each of those minutes last a whole century. Touma scratched his cheek, trying to think of something positive to say.

"So umm...you have the bear at least?" He said, hoping for a positive reaction. Kuroko, who had her back facing him, as if she was a robot her head slowly shifted to face him. Her eyes looked very cold, which made Touma shudder.

"You...you will surely pay." She growled, despite being in pain, managed to give off an intimidating vibe.

Touma just gave a nervous smile to the short pig-tailed girl. Now that he thought about it, if he had just left the bear plush alone then naturally Misaka wouldn't have found out about Kuroko's stash of _"important necessities"._ Kuroko wouldn't have had to deal with Misaka's fury and she would've been off scot-free. So it would mean her getting punished was mostly his fault. And with that he had internally face-palmed. Of course his luck would be at play here as he had triggered the person he was ironically supposed to be getting along with.

"U-Umm...Shirai-san, how many times do you want me to apologize?"

"That depends." She teleported, and had reappeared with many of her signature darts in her hands.

"How many of these can I throw at you?"

Touma gulped as she had thrown one of them with perfect accuracy, and would've struck Touma's face if he hadn't moved. Instead it left a pretty scary mark on the door.

"S-Such misfortune.." He groaned.

 _ **Seems like Touma is already off to a bad start, how will Misaka fare when she meets up with Index?**_

 _ **Next Time: III - The Nightmares Begin**_

 **I would just like to thank all the reviews I've gotten for this fanfic so far. I had only uploaded the first chapter and yet I already had 5 reviews about several hours later. I was not expecting that at all, considering my other works I would say aren't as great as this one. But thank you for following and favoriting this story and I'll try to get a chapter out as fast as can. Maybe once a week, I'm not sure. Anyway, stay tuned for the next chapter.**


	3. III - The Nightmares Begin

"Ah christ...I'm so tired." She moaned. She was on her way to Touma's dorm, and boy was she exhausted. It was about 2:30am as of right now and she had been walking for a good two and a half hours. Plus she was pulling a suitcase the whole way through, and doing that while walking wasn't exactly an effortless task. Perhaps she could've used her esper abilites to reduce the amount of effort she had to go through, but she was way too taxed after the whole Kuroko inciden to even bother. Plus she wasn't even in the mood to use them, and she figured it shouldn't take that long to get to his home, giving the way she left with so much confidence.

But she was clearly wrong if it had taken her almost two and half hours to get there just by walking.

She rubbed her neck, and her eyes looked pretty drained. You would've thought she was one of her sister clones if you saw her.

"But still that moron. Makes me wander around the stupid district at night, and says that I'll see an eight story building. Problem is, did he know that there was more than one building in this area?!" She exasperated, quite loudly too, praying that no one would throw something at her from their window to make he shut up.

She instantly got out of her tired state, and scratched her hair in annoyance. But she was right, she had passed by many eight-story buildings and she checked every single one of them, and she didn't see any indication of any of the rooms belonging to Kamijou Touma. This was also the reason why she was so fatigued. After the fifth or so building, she remembered that Touma had told her about there being a Boys Dormitory sign, but she had not found one at all in the buildings she had checked, so perhaps she shouldn't give up hope yet. But it was understandable, any normal person would be tired in Misaka Mikoto's situation.

"Damn, I know it's nighttime, but I didn't think it could be this quiet." As far as she could see, she was the only one out here at this time. Throughout the walk towards Touma's dorm, not too many cars we're out on the road, and most of the stores she had passed had little to no people in them.

She looked around at her surroundings once more. "But sheesh, I wish I had some implication of being close to my destination." As soon as she said that, she had bumped into someone by accident; more so the person she had run into had seemingly been standing there for a while, and Misaka was facing the other way and she couldn't prepare herself to avoid running into her.

"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to run into you like that." She said letting out a little laugh. The person simply stood there and Misaka just stared awkwardly at them.

"Uh...are you there?" She waved her hand in front of their face, and after a good ten or so seconds...

"Oww...that sure did hurt." She had replied in, probably the most monotonous voice Misaka had ever heard in her life. Practically, it looked like Misaka almost lost her balance at her response, due to both the delayed reaction and the listless way of her expressing pain. Just who the hell was this girl? She had gotten a closer look at her. She had on what looked like a girl's high school uniform, which made Misaka deduce that she was a fellow student from Touma's high school. Which to Misaka's knowledge, didn't necessarily have a name like her middle school. She had long black hair, which reminded her of Saten Ruiko, but only in terms of appearance as their personalities couldn't be any more different. She also had a cross necklace, for which Misaka couldn't figure out the reason for.

"Hmm...have we seen each-other before?" The black haired high school had asked, as she had gotten _extremely_ close to Misaka's face, making her feel a bit uncomfortable.

"Ah! You were at Komoe-Sensei's place weren't you?" Misaka who was still uncomfortable, only gave her a reassuring nod. She now remembered who she was and why she had said she looked familiar to her.

-TOARU-

 _"Gah! Please Sensei! You have to do this for me!" Kamijou Touma had said while kneeling down to his teacher, as if she was a goddess and he was a simple commoner. Misaka just stared at him, with a face of just pure_ _disappointment._

 _They were at his teacher Tsukuyomi Komoe's home. Touma had come up with the idea of asking his teacher for help in order to make his and Misaka's bet come into fruition. Although, it was about 9:40pm at night and Komoe-Sensei had just went a little...drink crazy and thus was suffering from a pretty bad headache, and also was very tired. Sleep-deprivation seemed to be a common problem as of late._

 _"Hmm..." Komoe-Sensei, while not in the best condition, would still help Touma no matter what, but seeing him in this state made her feel a little curious as to how far he was willing to go in order to get what he wanted._

 _"I'll go with you, if you consider doing something for me." She offered._

 _"And what's that?" He asked. From her tone it sounded like something he was probably going to regret. What happened after that was well, all Kamijou Touma could say was..._

 _Outrageous._

 _Komoe-Sensei then out of nowhere pulled out a similar bunny costume, to the one she was wearing as it looked especially fitted for a teenager of Touma's height which made Touma's eyes practically fall out of their sockets._

 _"It'd be really cute Kamijou-chan if you could put this on and do a silly dance for me!" She requested, her eyes shining like stars. Touma simply shook his head in defiance._

 _"H-Hell no! You want me? Kamijou Touma? To put that thing on?!" What she was saying was simply absurd to him._

 _"Yes!" She replied, almost like what she had asked him to do didn't require any mental preparation whatsoever._

 _"Screw that! There's no way I'm doing something so crazy! I'm not that desperate." He argued, trying to protect his pride. "Where the hell did you even get that anyway?"_

 _"Ah well, Tsuchimikado-chan told me that you would love to put this on, perhaps for a teacher and classmate dress up day!" She giggled. Touma on the other hand just clenched his fists in irritation. Obviously one of Tsuchimikado Motoharu's life goals was to make his life a living hell._

 _"That damn Tsuchimikado! Not this time, nope, no way! I'm sure of it now, I really do have to kill him!" As he was still clenching his fists, Misaka really had nothing to say, and looked lost after the bunny costume had been brought up into the conversation._

 _"H-Hey, you know we could just fight like usu-" She was about to suggest until, she was cut off by someone else in the room._

 _"So are you going to do it or not?" A black haired girl bluntly asked. Misaka was greatly startled by her sudden appearance as she had come out of nowhere._

 _"W-When did you get here?!" She asked, quite frightened._

 _"Hey Himegami, what are you doing here?"_

 _"Wait a second. Why aren't you surprised she is here?"_

 _"What are you talking about? She's been here the whole time." He confirmed, not really seeing what the big deal was. Misaka, awestruck by his calm composure was quite surprised by the amount of weird friends he had._

 _"Are you friends with her?" She asked._

 _"Yeah. We're actually classmates." He replied._

 _"Seriously...?"_

 _This girl that Touma was_ _acquainted with was known as Himegami Aisa, someone who he had saved from death in the past. She had an ability known as Deep Blood, which was capable of attracting and killing vampires. Ever since then however, she felt as though her life had become slightly less and less significant after that incident had happened._

 _"So my_ _presence here is much like that of Hasegawa Taizou?" Himegami asked as if she was offended, although with her expression you could never really tell. Although Touma could, being one of the only people who understood both her humor and feelings._

 _"U-Uh no way, I would never compare you to someone like that." Ironically, if Touma could compare Hasegawa Taizou to anyone it would be himself. That or Shimura Shinpachi._

 _"Ah, so I'm Yamucha then?" She asked. Touma facepalmed. He wasn't really sure why she was just spouting out random anime characters. Was she secretly binge watch buddies with Misaka's friend?  
_

 _"You're not Yamucha, and you're not Hasegawa. In fact, I would say you are probably a million times better than any of those characters." He admitted. This however changed Himegami's normal stoic expression to her with quite the flustered face. Clearly it was a compliment._

 _"Trying to progress through my character route are you?" She stated matter of factly. Touma sheepishly scratched his hair, with a slight blush as well._

 _"Umm well, that wasn't really what I was planning to accomplish." Misaka, who was watching this all unfold wasn't really a big fan of this development. She grabbed him by his collar._

 _"Hey! What the hell are you doing? This is no time to be flirting with people!"_

 _"Alright! Alright! Please let go of me." He said wanting to_ _relinquish in one of his favorite things known as freedom._

 _"Progressing through both of our character routes? I didn't think you were so daring." Himegami theorized, though this only made his middle school friend even more furious._

 _"What was that?!" She was clenching onto Touma's collar so hard, it was surprising how he didn't die due to suffocation._

 _"M-Misaka-san, y-y-you're ch-choking me to de-" Misaka finally let go of him and let out coughs due to the lack of oxygen._

 _"Kamijou-chan are you okay?" Komoe-Sensei asked with concern as she had hurried over to check if he wasn't seriously injured._

 _"I-I'm fine. But seriously Himegami just what are you doing here? I thought you had moved to the school dorms." He asked, remembering that Himegami had previously stayed with Komoe-Sensei due to not having anywhere to stay._

 _"I still do. It's just that I had forgot that I left something here." She said, as she took something off of Komoe-Sensei's table._

 _It was a camera, and there wasn't really anything special about it, though it looked pretty dated. It very much so looked similar to one of those Canon Cameras._

 _"O-Oh." Touma simply groaned. "Well would you look at that, a camera. Right when I have the decision of doing something extremely embarrassing. How convenient." He ended off with a sigh._

 _"So Kamijou-chan? Are you going to do it?" She asked innocently. Touma had to stop and think for a second. On one hand, if he did in fact put on the bunny costume, he would be able to get Komoe-Sensei's help in his bet of which he had initially planned. It wasn't exactly some tiresome task either. On the other hand however, Touma did not want to shred any amount of dignity he had. What was left of it anyway. Especially not to Misaka Mikoto, who would most likely never let him live it down. This was truly a difficult decision, and it would most likely take him a long time to come to a verdict._

 _"Please Kamijou-chan!" She had asked, with probably the most adorable puppy eyes any man would fall victim to. "I'd feel more awake if you could do this dance for me!"_

 _Touma hesitated for a moment but finally conceded. "...f-fine. I mean, it's just a dance right? Could it really be that awful?" After he said those words, Komoe-Sensei handed him the costume, and he went into the bathroom to change._

 _When he came out however, he was welcomed to a roar of laughter that reverberated throughout the home coming from the three other occupants. It wasn't exactly a very pleasant experience for Touma._

 _"Bwahaha! Oh man, this was definitely worth all of this trouble!" Misaka could barely speak out just that sentence, as her face was red because of her laughter of which she couldn't contain._

 _"Aww...how cute Kamijou-chan. You look adorable." Komoe-Sensei said, and even she couldn't keep a straight face and proceeded to join in on the laughter as well._

 _"Hey Kamijou-kun, you're costume...is very bunny." Himegami said with a little laughter of her own; the delivery however lacked all emotion._

 _Touma just frowned, clearly angry. Aside from the god awful attempt at what Himegami Aisa had thought was a funny joke, Touma could not be any more embarrassed than he already was. And he hadn't even done the dance yet._

 _"Haha, very funny. Now can I take this thing off?"_

 _"Not after your dance, Kamijou Usagi." Misaka said laughing her butt off. Touma just clicked his tongue at her, not enjoying a single bit of this._

 _"But it's so hot in this thing." He said pulling one of it's sleeves._

 _"Well I don't feel hot in mine." Komoe-Sensei admitted. Well that was obvious in Touma's mind, as she probably wears it all the time._

 _"Would me marching in place be qualified as a dance?" He asked, in hopes of retaining some dignity. He could at least tolerate being a marching rabbit. Much less so then doing something extremely girly like say spinning around like a ballerina._

 _"Nope." All three of them shut him down real fast. He sighed, and if wasn't obvious enough already, surely his bad luck was affecting him here._

 _"Well what do you want me to do exactly?" Touma had asked, as he wouldn't really call himself a professional dancer. In fact, even if he did have his memories, I don't think he's ever really danced before. He had seen his friend Aogami Pierce dance before, but it was probably the most pathetic and saddest thing he had ever seen. Which is why he never spoke of it again._

 _"It'd be so cute if you could spin around like a ballerina Kamijou-chan." She happily requested, more so ordered in his mind. Touma's face looked like it had said "Denied" in all caps._

 _"Why? Why would I do that?!" He practically begged for an answer to his plea. How did she correctly figure out what he was dreading just a minute prior? Was she a freaking mind reader?_

 _"No dance, no bet." Komoe-Sensei pouted. Touma sighed and did he what he was told. He stood on one foot, put his hands above his head; forming a circle and proceeded to spin around like a ballerina, feeling all of his pride just slowly ooze out of him. Both Misaka and Komoe-Sensei we're laughing like crazy and Himegami took out her camera and began to record the embarrassing sight._

 _"Himegami?! Are you recording this?!" Touma gulped._

 _"Yes."_

 _"W-Why?! I thought we were friends!"_

 _"But I wanted to record this so we could look back on it." She explained, not really trying to hurt his feelings. Kamijou Touma looked like he was about to cry, with the unfairness of it all._

 _"S-Such misfortune." He cried out as he spun around for like the sixth time._

-TOARU-

Yes, Misaka had definitely remembered now. Including that hilarious event that had happened earlier. She had to make sure she remembered what had transpired, as it was a free ticket to getting him to do whatever she wanted. Misaka then started to blush, as for some reason, some suggestive things kept coming into her mind.

"Are you alright, your face is looking red?" Himegami asked.

"U-Umm I'm fine haha. So wait did you actually get that whole thing on camera?" Himegami pulled out her camera and stared at it.

"I have every single minute of that on camera, yes." Himegami's facial expression suddenly turned into a mischievous smile, something that could rival Misaka 10032's smile.

"Maybe I could use this as an excuse to get him to do what I want." She proposed, seemingly speaking out Misaka's inner thoughts.

"You will?" She asked.

"Nah." She replied quickly, causing Misaka to lose her balance once again.

"I don't think I should do that. Who would be so desperate to wanting to hang out with someone, that they would try and blackmail them? I think that just shows how much self-confidence they have in themselves." She had claimed. Misaka just looked at her nervously. It was as if an arrow had struck her soul. Was she calling her out? In actuality, it seemed like she was calling her own self out instead.

"Y-Yeah, that's kind of a cowardly thing to do heh. You'd have to be pretty low to do something like that." It kind of pained Misaka to say this, as she had somewhat done this before, not too long ago at the Daihaisei Festival.

"So hey Himegami-san, you already know most of the details about the bet right?" Himegami nodded.

"Do you happen to know where Touma's dorm is?" She asked. Himegami put her finger to her lips, displaying a thinking position.

"Yes I do. I did stay at his dorm not too long ago." She told her. Misaka look like she was about explode.

"You?! What?! Him?! Stay?!" She had to make a note of that later. She wanted to press on for more information, but she just wanted to hurry up and get to his dorm.

"You're actually not that far from it." She pointed straight ahead. "As long as you keep going straight you should be there." She instructed.

"Thank you so much! You don't know how happy I am to hear those words!" She waved Himegami good bye and had suddenly gained the energy to run again, as she had darted down the crosswalk with her suitcase. Himegami just watched her as she ran, and she accidentally got a glimpse of what was under her skirt.

Himegami cocked her head to the side; her stoic expression not changing one bit. "...was she wearing shorts underneath her skirt?"

-TOARU-

"Ah finally, I made it." She breathed out in relief. She looked at it again and there it was, A Certain High School's Boys Dormitory. Of course it didn't really have an official name but she had finally made it, and it took her a long two hours to do so.

"Huh, doesn't really look too bad or anything. Just you're typical dormitory I suppose." She had walked up the stairs and made it to the seventh floor, following Touma's instructions from earlier. She continued to walk, and there it was, at the end of the floor.

Kamijou Touma's dorm.

She had to brace herself, as she honestly had no idea what to expect. She was talking with so much confidence earlier, but she was actually kind of nervous. Nonetheless however, she was most notably tired than anything else, with it being almost 3:00am after all. All she wanted to do when she got inside, was to plomp down on her bed, and sleep for a good 8 to 10 hours. Or in this case it would be Touma's bed.

Now that she thought more about it, she would be sleeping in Touma's bed. This would mean she would be smelling his scent, and in fact it would actually feel like she was sleeping alongside him in the same bed. Just that thought alone made Misaka blush furiously, but she shook her head, and just remembered how tired she was and knocked on the dorm's door.

She waited there for a good five minutes, but nothing happened.

 _"Huh, that's strange. I did knock didn't I?"_ Was she so tired that she was now imagining herself knocking on doors? She knocked on the door again, and this time made sure she did in fact knock.

This time a good ten minutes passed and still nothing.

Misaka groaned in annoyance. _"Hey, don't tell me Silver Sister is actually asleep in there."_

To be fair, it was 3:00am, and not many people are _usually_ up at this time. Misaka hoped she wasn't going to have to break in, because technically if she were to perhaps fall asleep on the ground, it wouldn't exactly count as Kamijou Touma's dorm and she would lose. She wasn't going to cheat either, because that wouldn't feel good on her conscience. Plus she had way too much pride to do so.

It was either break in, or stay awake until Index woke up. Both of those options Misaka wasn't very fond of, especially the latter.

Fortunately for her however, the door did open up, much to her delight. She was hoping Touma's bad luck wasn't contagious.

"Ah there you are Touma! I can't believe you left me all alone like that, you're such a big j-" She then realized who was actually at the door and pouted like it was no one important.

"Oh, it's just you Short Hair, what do you want?" Misaka just looked at her with disinterest. She did however notice a major difference in greetings when it came to her roommate and Touma's. Regardless, she was too tired to even argue with her and just walked her way inside the dorm ignoring Index completely.

"H-Hey! Didn't you hear what I said?!" She asserted, already not liking Misaka's presence in the slightest. She then noticed that she in fact had a suitcase with her.

 _"Why does she have a suitcase here? Why is she even here at all?! Don't tell me Touma is letting her stay here for some stupid reason!"_ Index was not sure as to why she was her in the first place, but if she had to guess then it must have to do with Touma.

Now Index would call Touma many things, but he wasn't super lecherous. If that were the case, then many other girls would be staying at his dorm as well. At the moment, there are only two reasons Index can come up with, as to why she would be here at this moment. One, perhaps Misaka had gotten into a situation of which she couldn't stay at her dorm, and due to Touma's kindness, he would happily let her stay here at his dorm. The other reason was, well perhaps he was being lecherous after all, and let her stay here because of that.

But truthfully the big question was, just where the hell was Touma?

She huffed as she watched Misaka place her suitcase next to her bed (formally Touma's) and inspected the dorm's contents. It wasn't as bad as she was dreading, and was actually quite nice; a pretty spacious area with a nice coffee table, and a decently sized television that Touma talked about, earlier in the day. She looked to her side and noticed the kitchen, which was different from her dorm as she and Kuroko didn't have a kitchen inside their dorm, due to the commodities of Tokiwadai making all their meals. She was however quite surprised at Touma having a bookcase in his room, perhaps he wasn't as dumb as she originally thought.

Misaka though as she was too absorbed in observing her new environment, failed to even notice Index get gradually close to her.

"Hey! Short Hair! Are you listening to me?!" She yelled, causing Misaka to become alarmed.

"W-What?! Oh...Silver Sister, I didn't notice you were here." She replied, sarcastically of course.

"I have a name you know, and anyway where is Touma?" She demanded an answer, and wasn't happy of how comfortable Misaka was sitting on her bed.

"Huh, what do you mean?"

"Eh?" Index looked confused. "What do you think I mean? I asking you where Touma is!"

"...uh but you should know right?" Index just shook her head.

"Well no I don't know, why do you think I'm asking you?"

Misaka gasped, now understanding the situation. _"She doesn't know where Touma is? Don't tell me that idiot didn't tell her about the bet?!"_

Misaka wasn't prepared for this. Earlier when Touma had thought of the plan of having a bet they had split up for a while, as Touma had told her that Index would kill him if he didn't return to his dorm with the groceries he had bought earlier. Until they met up again to go to Komoe-Sensei's home, she just wandered around District 7, and didn't go back to her dorm until later when she, Touma and Komoe-Sensei went to persuade the Dorm Manager about the so called _"project"_.

That explained why she had to explain the situation to Kuroko, and she figured Touma would've told Index about the situation, but according to her she hadn't been informed. It made no sense to her as to why Touma didn't tell Index at all about the bet when he had the timeframe of when they had met at 3:00pm earlier, to about 9:00pm when they prepared to head to Komoe-Sensei's home. Did he just simply forget? Or was it just a way to help him win the bet?

But she couldn't focus on that now as she was going to have to come up with an excuse fast, as telling her about the bet now wasn't exactly going to make her feel overjoyed. She could tell that Index would be more violent about learning of this news than Kuroko would ever be.

"Umm why Touma isn't here? Well something came up with his parents and he uh...has to stay there with them for a week." She gave her a face to make her excuse seem all the more believable, but unfortunately Index was not that unintelligent.

"But he didn't tell me about this when he was here earlier." She confessed. Misaka had an easy reply to this.

"Oh well, you see I had run into him while I was on my way back to my dorm, and shortly after that he got a phone call from his parents saying they needed him to come there right away."

"Is it something urgent?!" Index asked, actually throwing Misaka a little off balance with the amount of concern she had in her voice. Just how close were these two she thought.

"U-Uh no there's nothing for you to worry about. That's what Touma said anyway."

Index stared at her, evidently not believing her at all. "...that just makes me even more worried." She knew this, as she was aware of how reckless Touma could be.

"N-N-No! It's really fine! Really! Since he's going to be gone for a week he asked me to take care of you until he comes back. See? He really does care about you if he told me to stay here and make sure you were okay." Misaka prayed that she would buy this, and well while Index felt really flattered inside that Touma truly does care about her wellbeing, she was finding this really hard to believe.

"I want to hear this from Touma."

"Eh?"

"I said I want to hear this from Touma!" She growled as she reached for a pillow and hurled it towards Misaka. Misaka luckily managed to somersault onto the floor and avoid it.

"H-Hey! What the hell do you think you're-" Before Misaka could even finish her sentence, Index took another pillow and threw it at Misaka, but Misaka managed to dodge that one too, as she placed her hand on the floor and slid herself away from the pillow's target.

"Stop chucking pillows at me and let me explain to you-" It was then that it took Misaka Mikoto a few seconds to realize that a pillow had in fact crashed right into her face. Index grinned, glad that her love rival had finally got what she had deserved. What that was well...no one really knew.

Shockingly the pillow decided that it was a good idea to break the laws of physics, and retained staying on Misaka's face, until she had placed her hands and took it off her face herself.

What this revealed however was an extremely enraged Misaka Mikoto, and Index was starting to regret pissing her off.

"U-Uh Short Hair...uh are you angry?" This was the second time Misaka had gotten to this state of rage due to the irritation of two people, and ironically Kamijou Touma, the so called unluckiest person alive, was not one of the two who had angered her today.

"You...I told you to just let me explain!" She exploded in rage as electricity started to come off of her and it was running wild inside the room. Index hurriedly moved left and right, quite awkwardly as she tried to avoid Misaka's electric shocks. The electric shocks had hit the bookcase, the bed and even left a burn mark on the door as she unleashed her fury. Index wasn't sure how to get her to stop until Misaka; who couldn't control her electricity at the moment due to her rage, and her extremely tired condition, had also blasted the television, which thankfully wasn't destroyed, but just cut off. Misaka had stopped firing electricity after that.

"Uh oh." She didn't _want_ to do that. Index ran over to the television and repeatedly pressed the power button over and over again.

"O-Oh no...how will I know if _Magical Powered_ _Kanamin_ survives the sudden betrayal of her rival in the next hour? They said it was going to be a special two-parter episode!" She cried out in regret as she placed her hands and looked down at the floor; in distraught.

It baffled Misaka as to how they could broadcast a brand new special two-parter episode of a magical girl anime this late at night. Was that the reason as to why Index was up this late? Did a magical girl anime really save her from sleeping outside? In spite of all that though Misaka had noticed that Index's face had drastically changed from her normally happy go lucky facial expression to one that looked like she was very much so about to burst into tears. As Index stared into the black broken TV screen it just made her feel like a wretched soul as it had lost it's way throughout this world. It looked like she was growing a dark blue aura filled with sorrow.

"H-Hey, come on now, feeling upset isn't going to make this any better. I'm sure that if I go back over there right now, and give it a nice jolt it'll come back on heh." Misaka tried to reassure her as she looked quite nervous at what this could possibly develop into. She had only been here for about 10 minutes and they were already causing problems. Feeling quite anxious, she slowly made her way to Index with her hands up in defense and tried to smile as hard as she could. Who knows, perhaps she wasn't actually mad but just sad?

She was wrong to think that.

As Misaka was getting close to Index, her dark blue aura of sadness made a quick 360 and transformed into a dark black aura filled with rage.

"Oi...Short Hair. You really think just fixing the TV will solve the problem?" She turned her head to the Level 5 Esper, with a cold-blooded stare that caused Misaka to jump back; terrified. The look on her face would make even the Dorm Manager shrivel up in fear.

"Hey...easy now." Misaka put her hands up and walked back slowly, albeit totally imploringly. Just what was she planning on doing to her? Bite her head off? Kill her? There was no way in hell she was going to stick around, and thought it'd be best to make a run for the room behind her; lock the door and call it a night. But before she could even do that, Index suddenly had another pillow in her hand.

"You said feeling upset isn't going to be make this better right?! First Touma leaves me, and now you broke my TV?!"

"That's not even your TV!" Misaka protested, but that didn't stop Index anyway as she chucked the pillow towards Misaka, and this time it came her way a whole lot faster as Misaka had to literally move at the last second in order to dodge it.

"Calm down! I said I would fix it!" She yelled back at her, noticing just how irrational she was being in this situation, but now Index had two pillows in her hands, and flung them as hard as she could at her victim.

"Not good!" Misaka dodged the first pillow and she turned around and ran down the small hall in Touma's dorm. The second pillow Index threw unfortunately ended up impacting her on her back and she actually felt a little pain.

"D-Damn! Just how hard and how fast did she throw that thing? That could definitely rival my Railgun." She had no time to be thinking about that however as she went down to the back of the dorm; put her back to what she assumed was Touma's room, and prepared for the worst.

It seemed like Index was just getting started as she grabbed even more pillows and threw them one after another. Misaka; if she didn't have advanced reaction time thanks to her abilities wouldn't have _even_ been able to survive this onslaught of pillows, much less to the distress of Kamijou Touma, who probably had to deal with this amount of unfair punishment regularly.

 _"Just how many of those pillows does she freaking have?!"_ She desperately thought to herself as she dodged each one; having very little time to catch her breath as once she had dodged one pillow, the next one would be incoming at any part of her body.

The thing that made this difficult for Misaka was that she was practically backed into a corner, both literally and figuratively; much like a box as she was just up against a door and not really having as much space as she would like when it came to moving out of Index's range. As such, she had to somewhat arbitrarily move awkwardly as she dodged each pillow, as one came and she had to move her head to the side, and another came as she had to duck her head, and another came forwards as she had to jump without hitting her head towards the ceiling. Misaka found it ridiculous as to how a small space such as Touma's dormitory could hold so many pillows. Index was practically producing them from thin air as she kept pummeling Misaka with more and more pillows.

 _"There's no way any normal person would have this many pillows, she has to be producing them somehow. Is this her esper ability?"_ Misaka pondered hard about this as she didn't really know what esper ability she could have. It's not like they have spent much time together, in fact this was probably the longest time she had ever spent with Index. She didn't even know if she was even an esper or not. Truthfully however, an ability to create pillows out of thin air, was honestly even beyond her in terms of how crazy it sounded. Then again, she's fought against espers with many unique and colorful abilities so she wasn't one to say producing pillows was so far-fetched.

The reason for this many pillows was actually very simple. A couple of days ago, Index decided it would be a great idea to buy a bunch of pillows; courtesy of Touma's wallet of course, although it wouldn't be courtesy if he had known about it, and she had stuffed them all underneath her bed, just in case she had to punish Touma for when he would as Index would call it _"A Big PoopyHead Jerk"._

Eventually after a long while, Misaka was starting to get tired of dodging, her sleep-deprivation state catching up with her again, and it made her believe that Index was actually getting faster with throwing pillows. It wasn't helping that Misaka kept closing her eyes. and accidentally falling asleep only to be awakened by a pillow to the face, and she was eventually just bombarded by so many pillows and was practically covered by them.

Index stopped throwing pillows and regained her breath. This wasn't exactly a good day for her either, as Touma didn't even call her about suddenly leaving to go to his parents, and the person she had just attacked with pillows had broken her TV. As she looked towards the pile of pillows on top of Misaka, the pile shook a bit, and Misaka shot out of the pile; only her arms and head being free, and she looked worst than when she had her bout with ITEM during the Sisters incident.

She coughed a bit, as she was out of breath herself. "H-Hey Silver Sist-I mean Index-san. Please just stop, and let me fix your TV!" She was starting to get really tired of this.

Index frowned. "You won't let me speak to Touma! It would be really nice to hear from him! And thanks to you, I now am going to miss my favorite show!" Index at this point was probably at the pinnacle of her rage, as she had prepared herself to stay up and watch this incorrectly timed special that would come on at 4:00am. Now that the television was broken, and no innocent Kaimjou Touma to punish, though in all honestly him not really telling her about all of this made him really not innocent after all. There was only one person here that would take the full brunt of her wrath. It was at this point that she wondered if what she had done to Kuroko a few hours earlier, was some kind of foreshadowing for this bad karma.

As Index prepared to throw her next pillow, Misaka had realized that if she could, she would want to punch her face so hard at her own stupidity. It had occurred to her of the fact that there was a device at her disposal called a phone. And if she were to use said phone, she would be able to give Index what she wanted.

 _"Ah that's right! Why don't I just call him, and then she'll calm down. I'm so stupid! Why didn't I think of this earlier?"_ She also remembered how she could probably use her electricity to destroy the pillows, but that was besides the point. She jumped out of the pile of the pillows; went into her short's pocket and pulled out her phone.

She dialed Touma's number on her phone and impatiently waited for an answer.

 _"Any day now would be nice..."_ She complained internally as Index was preparing for a fastball.

I'm not kidding, she was even in baseball pitcher formation. It was understandable as to how Misaka was just stumped at her eccentricity.

 _"Is she a baseball player? Why the hell does she have the ability to throw a fastball?! Was it that easy to pull off?! She is literally insane!"_ As more and more questions popped into straight man Misaka's head, it sounded like a certain level zero esper finally picked up the phone.

" _Uh...hello?"_

Misaka smiled brightly, as she sure was happy to hear his voice, even ignoring the nickname. For some strange reason however he sounded muffled.

"Hey listen! You're roommate is losing her mind right now because you aren't here. And I don't know how to stop her rampage!" She said urgently.

A little pause was there until Touma spoke up again. _"Well I mean, there is one way for you to get out of this situation. It does involve you leaving and coming back here though."_ He snarked. Misaka rolled her eyes, and groaned; obviously understanding what he was alluding to. She huffed, as there was no way she was going to give up on Day 1.

"Very funny, but it would be really nice for you to play fair as I told Kuroko about the-OOF!" The fastball that Index was winding up earlier struck right in her abdomen.

 _"Hey! Are you alright?!"_ He was waiting for a response. Misaka held her stomach, still feeling the pain and being ashamed of that fact that a pillow could hurt her that much.

"I'm fine, but look! I really need you to confirm that you're currently with you're parents right now." She requested.

 _"Hmm...why?"_ He asked nonchalantly. It was apparent that Misaka grew a vein here.

"Why?! It's because of you're pathetic excuse for a brain didn't think it was a good idea to tell Index about you're _parents'_ situation!"

"Who are you talking on the phone too?" Index questioned, but instantly beamed.

"Ah! Is that Touma?!" She asked, but didn't get a reply from Misaka as she was waiting for Touma to respond again, but strangely she heard some kind of bop sound on the other line.

 _"Whoops, my bad. Sorry BiriBiri, looks like I forgot to tell her about the bet."_ Misaka groaned even louder than before.

 _"Well I guess it is my fault for not telling her, and it wouldn't be fair since Kuroko already knows the situation."_

It was again that Misaka had noticed that he was getting more and more muffled on the other end of the receiver.

"Hey, the hell? Why do you sound so muffled?"

 _"Uh well you see...it's actually a funny story."_ He laughed nervously. _"Currently I'm under you're bed right now."_ _  
_

 _"_ What? Why?"

 _"Why?! It's because you set off that thing known as a Devil onto me! Do you have any idea how much trouble I'm in now because of you're anger issues?! She's attacking me like crazy. I've been dodging and running away from Shirai Kuroko for the past two hours! Two hours!"_ It sounded like he was clenching his fist on the other line. They did both acknowledge how they didn't exactly make their roommates happy when they left.

"Don't complain, I have it tough too. Besides she deserved it after all, as if she was going to get away with such a perverted thing." Touma groaned.

 _"Did you really have to shock her for thirty minutes though? Don't you think that was a bit too drastic? Besides why do you care so much about panties anyway, you wear shorts all the time."_ He retorted, making Misaka even more frustrated.

"Well excuse me for having something known as shame!" She yelled back, but then formed a sneaky grin.

"Well I mean...there is one way for you to get out of this situation. It does involve you leaving and coming back here though." She mocked in the best Touma impersonation she could perform.

 _"Why you little-"_ Touma swore but Misaka interjected.

"What's wrong Kamijou Usagi? Ready to give up?" She jeered, clearly forgetting why she had called him in the first place. Touma was furious. He still couldn't believe he actually had to do that stupid little dance in order to pull this bet off. There was no way he was going to put up with Misaka's mocking anymore, not today.

 _"Have fun, Misaka."_ He said as he ended the call.

"W-What?! Hey!" She yelled at the phone, but no answer. She tried calling him again.

 _"The call you are attempting to place, cannot be reach."_

Misaka almost crushed her phone. "The asshole hung up on me?! I can't believe it!" She grumbled because in all fairness, him hanging up was kind of her fault.

"That was Touma right? Why didn't you let me speak to him?!" Index barked.

"He hung up on me that's why! That roommate of yours is such a pain in the ass!" She cursed, but what she didn't expect was this made Index even more upset.

"Apologize!"

"What?"

"I said apologize! And don't call Touma that! Touma is really nice and I want you to apologize!" She yelled as she jumped like 10 feet her height, almost hitting the ceiling. Misaka cursed internally. Now she wanted to feel appreciative of him? She had so many mood swings, it was hard for her to know when she would either be mad or sad next.

"What are you planning on doi..." Before Misaka could even finish, Index revealed what Touma had dubbed it to her once as _**"The Sister's Fangs Of Death"**_ which wasn't something Misaka would call fun as she was now seeing it for herself.

"S-Stay away!" She ducked under Index, and headed into the Dorm's main area where the coffee table and Index's bed was, but what astounded Misaka was how Index had perfectly aimed her feet towards the door she had her back against earlier, and used it to project herself towards her.

 _"I-Impossible!"_ Amazement and shock were both present on Misaka's face as she watched Index's perfect rebound of avoiding collision with the door. But that didn't last long enough once those fangs had reached it's bullseye.

"Chomp!" She thought it was necessary to make the sound of her bite.

"GaaaaAAAAHHHH!" Misaka cried out in pain as the pitch of her screech seemed to elevate into a high frequency. She ran around in a circle, trying desperately to shake her off.

"Oww that freaking hurts! Get off! Get off! Get off!" She demanded as she waved her left arm off very rapidly, hoping she would just fall off, but no, her teeth were most definitely clenched in. It was like she was a magnet and wouldn't just piss off, and the more she tried to shake her off, the more her teeth would dig into her flesh, and it hurt like hell. She initially thought Touma was kidding when he was talking about being bit by Index, and figured he was being way too hyperbole about the pain he felt. But no, it actually did hurt. Oh how much it god damn freaking hurts.

"Don't you ever get tired of this? How do you still have teeth?!" She at this point wondered why she even bothered asking her anymore questions.

"I w-t chu two aporogize to To-a!" Index sounded so incoherent that all Misaka could do was guess that she probably wanted her to apologize. She was considering doing that but she thought of another plan. Something that would surely resolve all this. She took her phone out and checked the time. It was 3:58pm.

 _"If I could just recharge the TV back on then..."_ Truthfully this would solve everything if she could manage to fix the root of the problem. Well the root of the problem would be Touma, but the TV breaking did succeed in escalating the situation. Misaka pondered as to why she didn't think to do this before, but she sincerely just dumbed it down to her just having an "off-day" today. Misaka lifted her right arm up and started to form some electricity in her hand.

Index was now was making her way up to Misaka's neck as she was biting even up to her shoulder. It was hard for Misaka to both concentrate and aim her electric shock towards the TV, as the ever present pain was making Misaka feel more and more fatigued.

"Come on...come on..." She repeated over and over again and finally she fired. The television sparked up a little, and right on schedule, Index's favorite anime two-parter episode special had come on. She could tell because the anime's opening credits were playing.

"Oooh! _Magical Powered Kanamin!_ I didn't miss it after all." She instantly released Misaka from her clutches, turned the lights off and quickly ran into her bed, and pulled up her covers. Her eyes were literally glued to the screen, as they were literally the only thing lighting up the room from pure excitement, aside from the television of course.

"I hope this special is better than the last one." Index hoped as she had disconnected herself from whatever problem she had prior and only focused on her favorite anime.

Utterly speechless, Misaka Mikoto just stood there for a moment, and slowly dropped down to her knees. She stared at the wall and tried to recall just what had happened in the past hour. Would she have to do this every single day? Surely this was a horrible experience. She clutched her arm, still feeling the pain from her bite earlier. She wondered how Touma was doing right now. Was it any better than what she had been through? Sure Kuroko was definitely strong and violent but was she even on the same level as Index?

She shrugged those thoughts off for now. Thinking negatively would only make her resolve waver. Most importantly however, she was tired, and really wanted to crash down and get some shut-eye. Yes that would do her some good. She struggled a little bit, but managed to stand up, and basically limp her way down the small hall into the door of which Index had done her amazing rebound off of.

She personally couldn't wait to just see a nice soft bed, even if it was Touma's and just wanted to sleep for a long 12 hours. Originally she thought a good 8-10 hours was good, but now those 12 hours really sounded good about now. She opened the door, and was honestly pretty excited to just finally get some sleep.

Until she was presented with the sight of the bathroom in her vision.

"W-What? The bathroom? I thought this was his room." She had been focused on so many other things she didn't even think to check the rest of the dorm. She closed the bathroom's door and looked to her side and noticed another door.

"Maybe it's this one." This time when she opened this door it had revealed the laundry room. A pretty nice one at that, and she noticed a basket filled with Touma's clothes. At the top of that pile was his underwear, which truly made Misaka blush and she virtually slammed the door. She was genuinely confused though, as she looked at both the doors and the kitchen to the left of her and wondered where the hell was his room.

"That's weird..." Misaka had walked back into the main room of the dorm and saw Index was still watching her show.

"I don't understand..."

At that moment, it had occurred to her shortly after, that technically, Touma's dorm was actually a one-person dorm, so it wouldn't be that illogical to think that there wasn't a second bed.

" _Wait a second...if there is only one bed...then where the hell am I supposed to sleep?!"_ She took back what she said about Touma's bad luck not being contagious.

No, it was definitely contagious alright.

 _-_ TOARU-

"I can't believe Misaka would say those things to me." Touma said as he got out under his new bed and scratched his scraggy hair. He felt somewhat guilty as he did kind of promise to help Misaka sort things out with Index, but after hearing "Kamjiou Usagi" there was no turning back.

"That stupid Misaka, getting all confident that's she going to win. Well I'll show her, I'll rub victory right in her smug little face." He declared while putting a fist up.

"-Ah so you're calling Onee-sama stupid now huh?"

"I sure am. This Kamijou Touma will not accept defeat!" He proclaimed, his confidence surely at his peak now, but he also didn't notice just who he had responded to, which was a certain twin-tailed teleporter behind him, who had a dart, ready to stab Touma's neck.

"Gah!" He moved out the way and almost got stabbed by the dart. He jumped on top of Kuroko's bed in order to escape her range.

"Umm...Shirai-san, can't we talk about this?" He was actually nervously laughing while saying that.

"No."

"W-Wow...no mercy at all huh?" He then noticed something quite peculiar.

Hey no offense, but are those darts the only weapons you carry around? I figured you would have more weapons at your arsenal." He asked quite honestly, but Kuroko thought of it as mocking and it looked like her dart had even glistened as she pointed it at Touma.

"Oh, so now you doubt my abilities? Is that what I'm hearing?"

Touma immediately denied this as if his life depended on it; he shook his head like it was a beyblade as well. "N-N-N-N-No! Those words did not come out my mouth, I swear it. I was not doubting your ability whatsoever. In fact, teleportation happens to be one of my favorite esper powers. See? I'm your friend and you're my friend. We're all friends right?" He gave her a very awkward smile.

If he had just had any amount of persuasion skills whatsoever, and actually had a confident smile on his face, she might've believed him. Might of.

As Touma braced himself, Kuroko made a break for the bookcase and made five books vanish from it. Once Touma watched this, he realized that they could come from any direction, and from up above they started crashing down, and he quickly jumped off of Kuroko's bed and landed back on the floor.

 _"Alright Kamijou Touma, just relax. Now is the time to think clearly about my next move."_ Touma looked at Kuroko and she looked back at him. Both were unsure of who would make the first move. Touma had to think of a plan if he wanted to get out of this with no injuries, well other than the injured he had suffered before he had talked to Misaka. If he could just manage to grab ahold of Kuroko with his right hand, then perhaps he would be able to secure victory. After all, if he was able to grab her and negate her teleportation, it would at the very least give him an advantage.

 _"Alright, that's my plan. Now to execute it."_ Touma ran full sprint towards Kuroko, preparing to grab ahold of her with his right hand.

"You just don't quit do you?" Kuroko took a dart out from the black strap of her left thigh and threw it towards Touma's direction. He swiftly dodged it with ease, and once he got into close proximity, Kuroko went for a roundhouse kick, but Touma had also had dodged this and managed to successfully grasp her hand.

"Tch..." She cursed.

"Gotcha!" He smirked, believing he had won. As he had predicted it looked like Kuroko had tried to teleport but she had no success.

"S-So it would seem you have defeated me..." She said, as she closed her eyes, seemingly giving up.

That would be the case, until Touma had felt a sharp pain in his right hand.

"Damn it!" He cried out as he held his right hand in pain, and once he did, Kuroko was now free and she spun around and threw a dart, which caught onto Touma's shirt and sent him flying towards the door, leaving him stuck. He struggled to get out of the lock, but he was not very profitable in becoming free. It was his fault that this had happened however, as he had seen how Shirai Kuroko had gotten free out of his grasp. She had secretly had another dart in the hand that Touma had grabbed, which she then pushed into Touma's right hand, forcing him to let go of her hand, and had left him off-guard.

He had definitely underestimated her.

Kuroko laughed and walked her way over to Touma. "First you claim that you don't doubt my ability, yet you assumed I would fall for getting caught by that mysterious right hand of yours. Secondly you call us friends, and yet we've never even talked to each-other for as long as this before."

Touma sighed. This was just not his day. Kuroko simply stared at him with a glare. "I just don't understand what my Onee-sama sees in you."

"Well to be frank, she doesn't really treat me with as much respect as you do to be perfectly honest. Which isn't that much." He admitted.

"For once I would say we agree." She placed a dart towards Touma's chest and prepared to impale him. But to her surprise, he wasn't doing anything to stop it. He was just looking at her with quite the neutral face.

"Are you really not going to beg me to stop?"

"Hey I mean it was my fault for doubting you, BiriBiri sure wasn't joking around when she said how formidable you were."

"Y-You're speaking nonsense. I'll seriously kill you!" She responded harshly, with a bit of caution however.

His neutral face then changed into a face of absolute resolve. "If I really was defeated this easily by you, well then maybe I just wasn't good enough. I'm the one who suggested this bet and if I was going to lose so easily, then well maybe I deserve to be taken out. After all, Misaka said I would be begging to come back to my dorm, but I rather go out like this then admit defeat."

She looked at him quite anxiously. She was actually sweating from her forehead, not really sure how to respond to this scenario. His logic just baffled her as it somewhat made no sense to her. What was he trying to prove by letting himself get killed? Was he seriously determined to prove her Onee-sama wrong? She would've thought he would be begging for mercy now, much like what he was doing earlier. This person was quite the enigma to Shirai Kuroko, as he was just so unpredictable to her. Perhaps this was the appeal of which her Onee-sama found in him.

A few moments passed, and Kuroko puts the dart back into her black strap and teleports the dart holding Touma to the door; letting him be free.

"Wait, you're setting me free?" He asked; flabbergasted.

"Of course I am, that's what I just did isn't it?"

"What the? But Kuroko I thought you were going to...well you know?" He was motioning her to finish the sentence.

"Kill you? Heavens no. Did you seriously believe I would do something like that? I may hate you with every fiber of my being, but I'm not a murderer." She brushed her hair to the side. "It's quite hilarious how you believed something like that." Touma a bit offended, just gave her a smile.

"Yeah, yeah I guess I was pretty stupid in believing that." He walked away from the door until Kuroko's voice stopped him from moving.

"Are you really that confident in besting my Onee-sama in this silly bet of yours?"

Touma turned around with a confident grin. "Well I don't like to brag, but in every single competition I've had with her so far, I was victorious in every single one. And I would like to keep that win streak."

"Ooohhh..." Kuroko just stared disinterestedly at him. If that was supposed to be a joke, it wasn't very funny to her. While she did think of him as a simple ape, she had found some new respect for him. His determination was interesting to her, as he was willing to have himself killed in order to make a point. It was exaggerated of course, Kuroko wasn't actually going to kill him in cold-blood, but if the situation was different and they were actually enemies...would he have done the same thing?

"But man!" He turned around and landed back first onto his new bed. "It's been so long since I've actually been in a real bed, that I think I might actually cry." He joked. Kuroko walked over, and sat down on her bed and looked at him with contempt.

"That's no surprise. An ape as yourself probably has never experienced the true joy of even the simplest of commodities." She snarked, hoping to get a reaction out of him, but it looked like he didn't even hear her.

There was a very awkward pause throughout the Tokiwadai Room 208 dorm. Neither of the two didn't really have much to say to each-other after that so called "fight" had occurred. Well until Touma found something he wanted to bring up.

"Hey Kuroko?"

"What do you want?" She replied harshly.

"You know...I think you're very admirable." He complimented. Kuroko looked supremely shocked. Out of all things to come out of that ape's mouth, she didn't expect something like that. Especially after all the things she had said to him.

"You think I'm what? Why would you say that?" She was genuinely asking him that.

"Well I mean, I just think it's very admirable of how dedicated you are to Misaka. I've never met anyone as close to a person as you are. You treat her with so much respect, and well while Misaka thinks of it as creepy, I personally think it's very commendable." He was actually praising her, despite everything that's happened.

"Well good night Kuroko." He said before snuggling up into his covers and instantly fell asleep. All Kuroko could do was just stare at him. Did he really just praise her like that or was she just imagining it? They had been fighting this whole time, but he didn't hold any anger or rage towards her for all she had did to him for the past two hours? She shook her head. She found it too ridiculous that Touma was actually complimenting her as if they were actually friends. But out of all that, there was something that truly made Kuroko happy. The praise itself. She had never been praised about her obsession before and didn't think something like that was even praiseworthy. But this young man actually made her think differently.

She stood up and stared at the Imagine Breaker boy.

 _"Kamijou Touma...just what is he?"_

 _ **This took forever to get out. I'm sorry for the long delay but would you look at that. I think about setting a deadline but this chapter takes the longest to get out. *sigh* Such misfortune. But anyway because of the long delay I decided to make this chapter super long. Well not super long, just a bit longer than what the first chapter was. But that's definitely the last time I set a deadline, as I've never been good at meeting them. I digress though, as I hope you enjoyed this chapter of just torture for both parties.**_

 _ **Oh right uh, the anime characters I referenced in this chapter uh I don't own them obviously. I especially wouldn't want to own Yamcha of all people, no way.**_

 _ **Next Time: IV - Touma's New Life**_


	4. IV - Touma's New Life

"Get up, you stupid ape! It's time for breakfast!" She yelled at poor Kamijou Touma as she was rubbing her foot in his stomach; quite painfully, trying to get him to wake up.

"Oof…such misfortune." He raised himself up from his temporary bed and rubbed his stomach in anguish.

"Kuroko-san, I said I would get up in five minutes, why did you _still_ wake me up?" He demanded an answer for his pained stomach. She huffed and looked the other way.

"Heh, and who said I was actually going to listen to your request?" She placed her hands at her waist. "Listening to you is a waste of my precious time anyways."

"Well jeez, that's not exactly something nice to say to someone." He pleaded, but Kuroko could obviously care less. She picked up her school uniform clothes out of her drawer, and went ahead to their bathroom and slammed the door shut. Touma simply winked in astonishment.

"What the hell is her problem?" He wondered outwardly, and looked around the room. The Tokiwadai Dorm surely was way better than his dorm, that's for sure. That was something he truly could not deny. There was no food piled up in the corner, the books over at the bookcase were completely organized as well, and not a single one was falling out. Granted, there was no television, but that wasn't really a big issue considering Touma hardly watches TV anyway. Now the best part of this whole arrangement was that he actually had a bed!

In Touma's mind, that was literally the best part, for obvious reasons.

He stretched his arms out, and scratched his back. He had forgotten that he had slept in his school uniform. Usually he would just take off his school uniform; sleep in his underwear and call it a day.

He vaguely remembers hanging up on Misaka yesterday. Truth be told, once he hung up on her he _did_ feel somewhat guilty about it and thought about calling her right back, but he remembered how cocky and smug she was being, which made him care less about it. Besides, he assumed she was fine.

Fine being the operative word in this case.

While that was on his train of thought, more and more of his memory was coming back from yesterday. He quickly shook his head, and his face had tensed up.

"C-Crap, I can't believe I almost died last night!" Touma couldn't fathom how things escalated so quickly once Misaka had left the two of them alone. All he wanted to do was apologize, but Shirai Kuroko surely did take things to the extreme.

He does recall stating things such as _"If I were to die right here, it would mean I wasn't good enough",_ but he gasped at how stupid that sounded. He was lucky his opponent wasn't Accelerator or heck even Stiyl or else he would've died for sure. He assumed that he had just been caught up in the moment, and was spouting nonsense. He didn't actually mean what he said right?

But if he did, the question is…why?

"Man…I have to think before I say things sometimes." Aside from that, there wasn't anything particular he had to complain about. He had a pretty good night's rest, the bed was really comfortable; it almost reminded him of his own bed. There also weren't any interruptions to say the least. Sure he had a 13 year old girl's foot placed in his abdomen as a "Good Morning", but hell he rather take that than getting his skull chomped on.

Plus he was rather curious about what Kuroko said about breakfast. Did this mean they were going to a cafeteria or something?

As soon as he finished that thought, out came Kuroko from their bathroom. She had on her school uniform, plus her signature Judgment band on her arm. She brushed herself and looked at Touma.

"Ah speak of the devil I guess." He said, kind of awkwardly.

"Hm? What are you talking about? She asked.

"Uh nothing really. So umm…you sure did take a shower quickly." He replied, quite amazed, as it didn't feel like she was in there a long time.

"I was only putting on my uniform. I had taken a shower earlier, and when I came out, I saw you were _still_ asleep! So naturally I woke you up."

 _"Going to exclude the part where your foot was placed in my stomach huh?"_ Now that he thought about, he remembered she was in fact in a towel, when she woke him up. Furthermore, when she had her foot on him earlier, he could've had a chance of seeing…well _you know_. Luckily all he could feel was pain, and was still a bit groggy during that moment, so his vision allowed him to pretty much see nothing.

 _"Well I mean…I can't deny that I am a pervert, I mean I am a guy, but I would feel a bit guilty seeing such "things" of someone I barely even know."_ He quickly got out of his thoughts however, as it looked like Kuroko had smelled something.

"Ugh…what is that horrible smell?" She sniffed around the area, and eventually was near Touma. She pinched her nose immediately.

'My god! You smell appalling!" Normally when someone tells you that you smell, (especially if it's from the other sex) it's not exactly something you should be proud of, but Touma didn't seem to mind though.

"Huh really?" He smelled his armpit. Yes right in front of a girl. He proceeded to then scratch his cheek in embarrassment.

"Heh, perhaps not bothering to bring my own set of clothes really did backfire in the end." He sheepishly laughed, but Kuroko simply snarled.

"Typical, Should've guessed an ape like yourself doesn't even know how to properly bathe. Well I'm not going to let you walk around the school smelling like that. Get in there and get yourself cleaned up this minute!" She yelled in disgust.

"Alright mom, and what do you expect me to change back into? I only have this to wear, I didn't bring another set of clothes!"

"I'm not even going to begin on how dumb that argument sounds. It's your fault you didn't bring any other clothes to begin with." She sighed. It was way too early in the morning for her to be irritated by every little thing he does.

"Well luckily for you. I happen to know just the thing for you to put on." Instead of going to her dresser, for some reason Kuroko went under her bed to pull out something.

And she seemed way too excited than she should be. Especially if it has to do with Touma himself, all in all he had a real bad feeling about this.

"C'mon, I know it's here somewhere…" She frantically was searching for something, and Touma had no idea what it was.

"Uh…what are you looking for?"

"Something for you to wear."

"No offense, but I'm pretty sure we have two different body-types. I don't think you could have anythi-"

"Aha found it!" She lifted up something, but since her back was facing Touma, he couldn't see it." "…Also shut up."

 _"She completely ignored me…"_

What she revealed to him was an old pink sweater, with a frog embroidered on it.

"Here you go. This should do just the trick!" She said this with a bright smile. Of course it wasn't out of kindness.

"W-What? What is that?!" Touma practically yelled out in distraught. Kuroko simply laughed.

"It's Onee-sama's favorite pink sweater. It should be able to fit you easily." She was still smiling. At this point, Touma thought it was just obnoxious.

"Never mind my pain and suffering of having to wear _two_ embarrassing things in a row, why was it under _your_ bed?!" Touma demanded.

"Now, now, that's not important. What's most important is that you wear it."

"…I'm pretty sure you having someone else's clothes under your bed is way more important than my clothes situation." He was determined to get to the bottom of this, but Kuroko just ignored him.

"Well, I believe you don't have any other choice. Now go in that bathroom, take a shower, and put on this adorable…obscene…and sexy-"

He snatched the sweater out her hand. "Alright I get it! I'll put on the damn sweater!" It was his turn to storm into the bathroom and close the door shut. She could've sworn she heard him mutter under his breath _"Damn pervert."_ so she made a note of sticking her darts face up underneath Touma's bed sheets later.

Kuroko walked up to the door, and checked out its hinges, and had a nervous look on her face.

"T-That's not good. We should probably stop slamming it…who knows what _she'll_ do to us if it's not fixed. But sheesh…his right hand sure is something. I don't think just me slamming it damaged it that much…"

-TOARU-

"-AH NO KUROKO! DON'T TOUCH ME...there?" Misaka Mikoto stopped shouting some suggestive and quite suspicious things, and found herself in someone else's bathroom.

"W-Where am I?" She checked her surroundings. Sure enough she was in a bathroom all right. However where she was in the bathroom was certainly peculiar. She noticed in front of her was…a faucet?

"Why am I in someone's bathtub?" She asked, her mind a bit fuzzy.

"Oh yeah right. Yesterday." The way she said yesterday, made it seem like that's all there was to it. But yes she remembered that unfortunately since this is a single person's dorm, there was only one bed. And well, with Index occupying it, there was no way in hell she was getting that bed without a fight. But Misaka was not going to go through that nonsense again. She may have pride, but there is a line between having pride and having common sense.

"Tch, that idiot. Why didn't he warn me about there only be one bed? And I still can't believe he hung up on me yesterday." Granted, she escalated the situation to reach that point. But regardless, there's nothing she can do about it now. She simply sighed and tried to get out of the bathtub, but only to fall back in like an idiot. Or I guess it was more comical in a sense.

"Ugh...what a pain in the ass. I can't even get out of a bathtub without too much trouble." She rubbed her aching back. She thought she had a good night's rest, but she just felt even more tired. That Index was not one to be trifled with, that's the lesson she learned yesterday.

"But damn, that girl. She sure gave me one hell of a workout. I can see why Touma always looks like he's done with life whenever I see him. Heh, but I'm sure Kuroko's giving him more of a hard time. Like I bet she's stabbing him in the back right now." She proceeded to start laughing.

"Oh man, now I'm feeling a lot better. I think I can actually get out this time."

With all her might, she managed to get out of the tub. I suppose the misfortune of others was a great motivator.

"Yes! I did it!"

Though she ended up falling down and hurting herself.

"Oww…d-dammit."

-TOARU-

"Ugh…I still can't believe I'm wearing this…you're practically stabbing me in the back right now." Touma groaned. He did not like this situation, not a single bit.

Kuroko started to laugh. "I think it looks great on you. Well I mean…for being an ape that is."

"I didn't ask for your opinion…" He muttered. Though he didn't exactly feel too bad about it. It was actually pretty chilly in this hallway, and it felt pretty warm to have a sweater on.

"Besides, it's a good thing I didn't let you try on those other clothes I found. They wouldn't have looked as good on you as this does." She added.

Touma stopped in his tracks as they were walking down the hallway.

" _Other clothes?!_ You mean to tell me this wasn't the only thing I could put on?!"

"Of course not. You think I would only hoard one set of Onee-sama's clothes? Besides, I would like to think this is your punishment for putting me through hell yesterday."

 _"Oh so now you're admitting to hoarding her clothes…"_ It was hard to argue that fact. Of course Kuroko would have more of her _precious_ Onee-sama's clothes. I mean that much was obvious from yesterday. Furthermore, Kuroko wasn't stupid, so she essentially let that secret slip out on purpose, most likely out of spite.

What an asshole.

Is what Touma wanted to say, but Kamijou Touma valued his internal organs and manhood, so it was best to just say nothing.

-TOARU-

Due to the comical injuries Misaka suffered at the hands of Index yesterday, she had to practically leap her way to the main room of the dorm. There she saw that Index was awake, and was watching TV; as usual She took a look at the clock.

It was 8:30am.

 _"Huh...so it's not as late as I thought it was."_ She walked over to the refrigerator. She was super famished after the events that had took place yesterday. Who knew dodging a 14 year old nun's barrage of pillows could leave a toll on someone.

She opened up the fridge, and what she saw in there was an empty fridge.

"Huh? It's empty?" She rubbed her eyes and close the fridge's door. She waited a few minutes and then opened it again, and what she saw in there was a cruel sight.

There was absolutely no sign of food (life) in this fridge.

"W-What the hell? W-Where is all the food?" She practically shoved her face inside the fridge, desperately looking for even a sliver of food. All she found in there was a little bit of milk left in a carton.

She picked it up and looked a bit unnerved."T-This is all we have?" Well it was better than nothing at all, it would somewhat let her gain the strength to even walk properly.

"Hey S-Silver..." She didn't want to get her upset again, so she just decided to call her by name. "Hey Index! Where is all the food?!"

"Huh? Oh it's all gone. I ate the last of it." Come to think of it, Misaka never did check the fridge at all yesterday. She did remember Touma having food on him when they met up yesterday, and he told her that Index had already ate the rest of that food when they had met back up at night.

This wasn't the best situation Misaka could ask for.

"What?! What am I supposed to eat for breakfast?!"

"Well Touma goes to get food at the supermarket all the time." She said. Misaka didn't really have the money to go super intense shopping. At the very least she wanted to get breakfast under wraps, and think about lunch and dinner later.

"Eh I don't really want to go to the supermarket...I'm not really interested in getting breakfast food from a restaurant either. Is there a convenience store around here?"

"Sure. It's just a 10 minute walk from here."

"Cool, thanks!" Misaka was practically out the door when she said that. It took a while for Index to react though.

"Huh...Short Hair sure is weird..."

 _"-But Kanamin, if you do that then you might not survive!"_

Index ran straight back to the pillow she was laying on. "Oh no! Kanamin don't do it! You can't!"

-TOARU-

For the rest of the way to the mess hall, they just walked in silence. Nothing much to say from both parties, as Touma was still fuming about the sadistic thing Kuroko thought was a joke, and Kuroko surely didn't have anything to say besides laugh in his face.

Eventually they finally reached their destination. One thing's for sure; it did indeed impress Kamijou Touma. For starters, the cafeteria was a lot bigger than he had imagined, and filled with more than a dozen tables. Plenty of students were gathered here at this time, so I guess it's a sign that they aren't necessarily late. Aside from that, what really impressed Touma was the fact that they had actually had ceiling fans here. They didn't have anything like that at his school.

Though that did piss Touma off, because he's quite lucky he has a sweater on, as it was also cold in this cafeteria. Which made him all the more upset, but that couldn't deny the fact that he did like the look of the cafeteria.

"W-Wow…I didn't expect it to be this huge. You rich-girls sure have it easy." He said in amazement. No way he's ever experienced anything like this before.

"Don't tell me you're overwhelmed by such things?" She scoffed.

"N-No of course not." He tried to play it off as if he wasn't impressed, but Kuroko could obviously see that and just Their conversation eventually attracted the rest of the seated Tokiwadai students. They looked at the conversing duo, but then went back to what they were doing; not very concerned with the fact that Touma was even here.

"Hey umm… shouldn't they be freaking out that I'm here?" He genuinely asked her. Considering the fact that Tokiwadai has the "no boys rule", it's a bit odd that they are rather composed.

"Hmm…that is peculiar. I guess the higher ups of the school relayed the message to every single student?" They soon begin walking to get their trays. On the way there, they were gossip among the students as they observed both Touma and Kuroko.

"Uh...they're looking at us."

"I'm aware." She replied; rather annoyed.

"But still-" Touma looked around the cafeteria. "-They sure did a good job of telling them about the science project situation. It's not as awkward as I was afraid it would be."

"I suppose it is summer break. As much as I hate to admit it, it shouldn't be that much of an issue. Considering you're only staying here for a week after all. An excruciatingly painful week that is."

"Well I'm so glad you're happy about it." He said sarcastically. Some students, started to giggle to themselves as they watched the duo converse.

"I bet they're laughing at this stupid sweater you had me wear."

"Just shut up and ignore them. It's not like they are saying false things to our faces."

"Shirai-san, don't tell me that's you're boyfriend?" As if it was on cue, a random student from the same grade as Kuroko had spoken up.

Clearly, they aren't very smart.

"W-Who on ear-" She almost wanted to throw her tray at whoever said that. "-Out of all things any sane human were to say, why would you ever think that me and this terrible ape are a couple?"

"Aww...but you two look so good together. You even showed up at exactly the same time, and even arguing like couples." The student replied, and with a bright smile too.

"I will throw this tray at you!" She was literally winding up the tray.

Here, Touma thought it would be a good idea to put his two cents into the conversation. He figured it would be a good way to save that poor naive girl's life after all.

"Uh...haven't you heard of coincidences?" I mean in Touma's mind, it could've just been a coincidence that these two walked to the cafeteria together. After all, sure they must all know that they are roommates now, but that doesn't necessarily mean they would always come to the cafeteria together.

"But doesn't this seem way too convenient?"

"Huh...well you're not wrong there I guess." Maybe this girl wasn't as naive as Touma had thought.

Hearing that, Kuroko then slammed the tray in Touma's face.

"OWW! What the hell Kuroko?!" He shouted.

"Way to defend yourself there! You're supposed to be on my side aren't you?!"

 _"Oh so now we're on teams?"_ He thought angrily to himself. "Ugh…I don't see how this could get any worse…"

"Aww…Shirai-san you even made him a cute sweater." Once again on cue, yet another student from Kuroko's grade had chimed in.

"See! I told you they were making fun of it!"

Kuroko rolled her eyes. She was surprised how much Touma didn't even care about them getting labeled as a couple.

"Ugh…well let's hurry up and get our food. I'm not going to continue wasting trays over such trivial matters." Kuroko walked over to the table where the breakfast food was being held, with Touma following suit. Just waffles were fine enough for her, and Touma was practically mouth-watering at the sight of the pancakes.

"Jeez…those pancakes sure look good. I wish I didn't have to pay for this. What I would kill to have free food."

"What? What are you talking about?" She asked, not really understanding what he was saying.

"The food. I mean we have to pay for the breakfast right?"

"No, of course not. The food here is free."

"S-Seriously?! You're not joking around are you?" He figured paying would be the case, considering he's had to pay for almost every single thing he's eaten in this city.

"Why would I lie?" She had no real desire to lie to him, at least right now.

"W-Wow!" This gave Touma quite the enthusiastic boost, despite all the "hardships" he's had to go through, both from yesterday and today. He actually ran over to some random student, looking way happier than before.

All Kuroko did was face-palm.

 _"And I'm supposed to believe he's older than both me and Onee-sama?"_ She thought to herself.

"E-Excuse me, but the food here is actually free right?!" The student Touma had asked had short brown wavy hair and blue eyes. She was known as Wannai Kinuho, who was one of Kuroko's classmates. She was sitting across from her close friend Awatsuki Maaya.

"U-Umm…yes that is indeed a fact." She was rather surprised at his sudden question. Also I guess anyone would be a bit bewildered by someone running up to them and asking them about free food.

"A-Awesome!" He looked down at his tray. "I can't believe all this food I have in my possession is free. Today, Kamijou Touma lives." He's never felt so satisfied with himself in his entire life. Well from what he can remember that is.

"Hmm…where should I sit?" He asked.

"Well, you can sit right next to me." Awatsuki had offered.

"Oh, well umm thanks." Touma sat down next to Awatsuki, and he sure was ready to just dig in to his precious breakfast like there was no tomorrow. Though he looked up from his tray at the two Tokiwadai students, who looked at him with concern.

Things were starting to get awkward.

"Oh umm…I'm sorry. It's just that, I never thought I would see the day of having free food. You guys sure have it great here."

"Oh I-I see. So that's what you are so happy about. You sure are one lively person." Wannai admitted.

"Thanks. I guess I'll take that as a compliment." It was better than any of the names Kuroko had called him.

"Hey, Wannai-san, I believe that's the science project student."

"Oh that's right Awatsuki-san! I can't believe I forgot about that." Both of them were pretty excited to say the least. They both looked at Touma in awe.

It made him a bit uncomfortable.

"Umm…hi."

That was all he could pretty much say.

"So you're Kamijou Touma-kun aren't you?" Awatsuki-san asked.

"Yeah, that's me. Uh who are you guys?" He asked.

"I'm Awatsuki Maaya. And my friend who you were talking to earlier is Wannai Kinuho."

"Awatsuki and Wannai huh? Nice to meet you guys." He smiled.

"So Kamijou-kun, what is it like being a high-school student?" Awatsuki asked.

"What's it like being in high school? Uh…not much different than being a middle-school student I guess. Well I suppose you could say the curriculum is much more difficult?" He said that, but even he wasn't too sure. After all he was smart, but he was currently failing in his studies as of late. It didn't help that due to the amount of times he's been in the hospital, he's had to miss many days of school.

"Oh I see. I guess that would be the case." Wannai said.

"Well if you would excuse me, I should probably get started on my break-

"Well what hobbies do you have?!" Wannai asked, and she was pretty close to Touma's face; starry-eyed.

"Hobbies? Eh I like comics and videos games. Stuff most guys like." This was kind of an awkward question for Touma to answer, considering he's lost his memories. Despite constantly having to save Index, he didn't really know what else he did for fun. There was this bet, but he obviously couldn't say that.

"Uh…I'm not sure what else I like to do. I guess I tend to have fights with Misaka sometimes."

"Ah! You've fought with Misaka-san?" Awatsuki asked.

"Yeah, and well…I guess I should rephrase that. It's more like she starts the fights and I get dragged into them." He tried to pick up his fork to get started with his pancakes, but Awatsuki had another question.

"You must be at least a Level 4 to even stand a chance against her." Awatsuki said.

"Well I'm actually a Level 0."

"A Level 0? But isn't that impossible? I just cannot see a Level 0 even on par with a Level 5. " Wannai states.

"Oh well, its kind of a complicated story. Uh anyway, I really should get back to eating-"

"Speaking of eating, Kamijou-kun, do you like to cook?" Wannai asked.

"Cooking? Uh yeah, I actually do cook. My freeload-I mean actual roommate isn't very good at cooking at all, and usually I'm the one cooking for us. To be honest, I never really thought about cooking for other people besides myself, but overtime I guess I started to enjoy it. It's actually not that bad."

"Aww, that's so sweet." Wannai beamed. It made Touma's face a little flustered. Now that he got a good look at Wannai, he did think she was quite cute.

"Y-You think so? I don't think it's that special."

"Of course it is. It just means you really do enjoy taking care of others." Awatsuki complimented.

"Heh heh, thanks." To be honest, Touma was expecting most of the Tokiwadai students to be just like Misaka and Kuroko. And well, both of them on their own are stressful enough, with there umm "mood swings". But no, these two didn't seem like they could get angry at all.

"Also I've been wanting to say this for a while, but Kamijou-kun...your sweater…it's very adorable." Wannai said; blushing herself.

"Eh…thanks…" Although Touma could tell Wannai was being extremely nice right now, she honestly reminded him of a doting mother, and actually feels very embarrassed right now.

It kind of made him wonder if his mother was like this to him when he was younger.

Sooner or later, Kuroko showed up with her tray in tow.

"Ah! Shirai-san, you're friend over here is really swell." She said; her eyes closed and having a bright smile on her face.

Kuroko just stared at her and didn't really have a response to that. Nor did she want to respond to it.

"Well I'm glad to see you two are getting along with the bane of my existence." Kuroko said as she practically plumped into the free seat next to Wannai.

"Your what?"

"It's nothing." Kuroko didn't really want to talk about it.

"What took you so long to get here?" He asked.

"I was busy talking to some students." She then looked around the cafeteria and was confused about something.

"Kongou-san isn't with you?" She asked.

"She had some errands she had to take care of. She said she would meet up with us later." Awatsuki answered.

"Huh…I see." Generally not a fan of Mitsuko Kongou, she still thought it was strange that she wasn't here with her friends. Whenever her and Misaka would come and eat their breakfast she always saw her sitting with Wannai and Awatsuki.

It just felt odd to her.

After that exchange, breakfast went by rather quickly. Both Wannai and Awatsuki were busy asking Touma questions, while Touma was trying to quickly eat his food between question pauses. Kuroko on the other hand just ate in silence; very irritated and had Kongou-san at the back of her mind.

Kuroko got up and put her tray back where she got it from, and adjusted her Judgment band.

"Well I'm off."

"Where are you going?" Touma asked.

"Where do you think? I'm off to Judgment." After that she just walked off. Not really saying anything else.

"Hmm…" Touma wondered what was up with her. Did it have something to do with the girl she was talking about earlier?

"So Kamijou-kun, would you like us to give you a tour of Tokiwadai?" Wannai suggested.

"Thanks, but I'm more curious about checking out this Judgment place. Speaking of, I've heard about it, but what exactly is Judgment anyway?" He knew it was something similar to Anti-Skill, but it's not like Kuroko had talked to him in great detail about it. He also hadn't heard much about it from Misaka either.

"Well you're somewhat on the right track. Judgment is a public morals committee for esper students who have the job of making sure there is peace throughout Academy City."

"Oh I see…so it's basically a junior version of Anti-Skill. Kind of like what I thought."

"A notable example would include patrolling around the city and stopping espers for misusing their powers." Awatsuki chimed in. Touma remembered Misaka saying something about Kuroko patrolling yesterday. He wondered why Kuroko hasn't offered Misaka to join or something, to like lessen her work.

 _"Huh…Kuroko must have it tough doing that sort of thing everyday."_

"So hey, do you guys know where it is?" Touma was kind of curious to check it out. He even wanted to know what the base of operations was even like.

"Of course. Ah! Did you want to check it out?" Wannai asked.

"Sure. I kind of want to see Judgment member Kuroko in action." He laughed after he said that.

Awatsuki grabbed Touma's hand. "Well then shall we be off?"

"R-Right now?! Umm hold on, I should really finish my f-"

And…Wannai grabbed Touma's other hand. "Let's go Kamijou-kun."

"B-But my breakfast…"

Wannai smiled. "You can finish it when you get back."

What's sad is that he didn't even get anything to drink. It sure was cruel day to be Kamijou Touma.

"S-Such misfortune."

 ** _Uh…it's been a long time guys. But poor Touma, I can't believe I left him on such a crappy end there. Oh well…it's not as bad as Misaka's situation? I don't even know anymore…_**

 ** _To be honest, I'm not sure how to feel about this chapter...I like it, but don't like it that much. I don't know...hopefully the next chapter will be better._**

 ** _Next Time: V – Convenience Store Trip_**


	5. V - Convenience Store Trip

"Huh, so this is it huh? Just your regular convenience store." Misaka noted, as she was just outside the convenience store that Kamijou Touma would often frequent. She recognized it a little bit, because she would sometimes watch Touma come out said store. And then quickly hide in the bushes, and slowly follow him and he would notice five minutes later.

Frankly, this is the reason they even met up yesterday; of which started this crazy series of events.

"Hmm...maybe I should've written a list." She remembered vaguely that she was only here to pick up food for breakfast, and would think about what to do about her and Index's lunch and dinner later. So she figured there would be no need to write such a list.

After all, Misaka Mikoto followed the ideology of _"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."_

However, she remembered a few weeks ago of which she ran into Kamijou Touma, after he had left his home to pick up some groceries. She remembered seeing him covered in bite marks, and she had asked him what had happened, and in response he said these words:

" _Hell. Hell is what happened."_

After that memory had come into her mind, her face suddenly became blue.

"I-I probably shouldn't-but maybe I should pick up more than just breakfast. I mean, what's the harm? I may not have that much money, but I'm going to need to buy a decent amount of food for that monster waiting back at home." There was a good chance that Index would most likely be hungry by the time she gets back, so it would be better to come up with a countermeasure, instead of facing off against her again.

Misaka's smile gradually started to deform into a sadistic grin. "That's it...winning this bet is going to be easy…"

If she was going to be Index's roommate, then what better way to gain her friendship than to give her the thing she valued the most? And that was food...or Kamijou Touma, but obviously that wasn't possible at the moment.

"Hehehe...you know what they say...the enemy of my enemy is my friend-" Her grin instantaneously formed into a neutral expression once she said those words.

"-wait...if it's the enemy of my enemy, then wouldn't that make my enemy's enemy my friend? Ugh, this is why I don't use that proverb. Plus, the proverb doesn't even work in the context I was trying to use it in...I blame Kuroko for this."

There was no real reason to blame Shirai Kuroko for Misaka Mikoto's own misuse of the proverb, but either way, it was important for her to gain Index's trust, in order to make being roommates with her much easier to handle. At least, she would prefer to not be in fear every time she was in the same vicinity as her.

"Well, let's get started." With pride in her step, Misaka strided into the the convenience store, and what she was welcomed with was quite the sight. It was quite crowded inside the store-it was somewhat overwhelming. But it wasn't crowded to the point of being impossible to even navigate.

"W-Wow...wasn't expecting this many people…" Misaka blurted. She then heard herself talk, and then coughed abruptly; causing some people near her to walk away; albeit awkwardly.

"H-Heh, so what if it's crowded, no problem. Everything is good…"

" _D-Damn it, I'm embarrassing myself here. I've gone shopping multiple times before, why am I acting like this is my first time?"_ She wasn't sure what to make of it. Was everything that was related to the bet really causing this much pressure on her?

She shook her head in dismay; she was not going to think about it anymore.

"W-What am I saying? All I have to do is buy breakfast and some snacks-nothing more." Misaka declared. With confidence, she walked over to the shopping carts, and grabbed one for herself.

She gazed over the horizon of aisles, and had a high and mighty smile…

...with a face covered in sweat.

" _W-What the…? Am I sweating? I'm not sweating right? Why would I be sweating at a time like this?"_ In order to test that theory she slowly, but surely, touched her face-only to find that she was _indeed_ sweating.

"Why the hell am I sweating!? She shouted, frantically scratching her hair; causing electricity to ooze out of her.

"-W-Who is she?" Said a female shopper, who was nearby; getting a shopping cart.

"-I-I don't know, but she scares me." Another shopper said.

Hearing this fourteen year old, clearly have a tough time when it comes to starting her shopping; the nearby shoppers had quickly evacuated the area she was in immediately.

She made a face that looked like she was desperately holding in the need to cry.

" _Why do I keep embarrassing myself!?"_ She sadly wondered. But then she pressed her face with her hands, in order to gain the confidence she had recently gained and lost within a matter of two minutes.

"I-I'm Misaka Mikoto, a Level 5 esper! This is just a convenience store-it's not even a supermarket! I, can do this!" Misaka exulted. And with the sudden burst of determination, she stomped her foot on the ground, and proceeded to jet into a random aisle.

"Oryaaaaaaa!" She yelled; as if she was in the middle of a decisive battle. As she reached the closest aisle; she stopped herself in her tracks by using her feet, and it may have caused a slight friction fire, but Misaka quickly put it out with said feet, and stopped immediately.

She ran into this aisle facing forward the entire time, and did not notice if she had accidentally bump into any fellow shoppers.

"I-I'm sure I didn't cause any trouble…" A bit shaky on that claim, she turned around to see if she either ran or even hurt someone in the process.

Luckily it would appear to not be the case.

She exhaled a breath of relief, which she then made a face of extreme terror. _"P-Phew. Holy crap that was close! I was actually worried there for a second-I thought I had actually hit someone."_

She examined her surroundings, as she did not even know what aisle she was in. She wondered what the point was in running to a random aisle in the first place.

"Wait, just what aisle am I in anyway?" She looked above to see that she was apparently in the aisle labeled 'Breakfast Items'.

"W-Wow, what luck! I went to the aisle I wanted to go in without even searching for it. Hah, once I tell _him_ about this he's going to be pissed!" She laughed to herself after she said that, and then went on to check what she should get.

"Hmm-not really sure what I want." There were many options to choose from, and she wasn't exactly sure what to buy or what not to buy.

"It would probably make sense to buy food that'll last longer than others. Maybe I should perhaps buy some cereal; certainly that'll last more than a couple of days." With that in mind, she decided to grab four boxes of some regular grain cereal, both for her and Index. She then went over to pick up some nutrition bars, and some coffee as well. She wasn't an avid coffee drinker-hell she wasn't even a drinker of coffee until just a month ago. Shirai Kuroko had let her try some of her coffee, and ever since then, she had been drinking it every once a week or so.

Because of that, Kamijou Touma had noticed that her short-temper had toned down significantly, and he's honestly never been more at ease to actually converse with her. Of course he brought this up when talking to Misaka once before, and that started quite the argument, one even he knew he was at fault.

Once she placed all those items in the cart, she then proceeded to move onto the area of which contained the coffee's sugar. If there was one thing she needed when it came to coffee, then it was definitely sugar-she couldn't drink coffee without it, that was for sure.

As she was about to grab a pack of sugar, she stopped midway.

For some odd reason, she pictured her and Kuroko in this convenience store together. Usually the two of them would often do their shopping together-Kuroko would be the one in charge of the shopping list, and Misaka would be the one pushing the cart, and gathering the items Kuroko would list off. They thought it was an efficient way of doing things, and since they were already covered for their main meals at the Tokiwadai dorm, they would only do this for gathering snacks to sneak into their dorm, without the dorm manager noticing.

She remembered the time Kuroko had told her to grab a small pack of water bottles, but she never specified which brand she wanted, so when they got back to the dorm, they ended up each taking one bottle out the pack, and then they ended up spitting the water out onto each-other's faces. It was both hilarious and mildly frustrating, at least Misaka was the one to find it hilarious. Which then led to Kuroko getting mad, and to relieve herself she wanted to give her Onee-sama a loving and constricting embrace, which then ceased Misaka's laughter and that escalated into a sequence of events that we all know too well what happens when Kuroko tries to perform lewd antics on Misaka.

Misaka hesitated, but she slowly grabbed the pack of sugar, and then gazed at it with eyes of melancholy.

"Don't worry, I didn't grab the wrong pack of sugar." She murmured. Once she said that, she sighed and gave herself a face-palm. To believe that after one day she had actually missed that perverted friend of hers. One of the many things she was looking forward to when it came to this bet was the fact that she would finally get some time away from surprise hug attacks, or surprise close proximity meetings in her bed in the middle of the night.

In short, she was glad that she would finally get some space from Shirai Kuroko, and that she would enjoy a week without her presence.

But clearly, that was not the case.

As she was standing there, reflecting on her best friend, she noticed that she was in front of a section in the aisle that a young woman who looked to be in her late twenties, was in the need of searching through.

"Umm, excuse me miss…"

"H-Huh? Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get in your way." Misaka said bowing in response.

"Oh no, no need to be so formal dear, it's fine." She smiled brightly as Misaka moved out the way, so she could grab something from the section she was standing in front of.

"So...shopping for your family dear?" She asked.

Misaka's face quickly became red. "F-Family? O-O-Oh no, ma'am! I'm just getting stuff for my umm…" She wasn't exactly sure how to put it-what was she going to say? _"Oh, I'm going shopping for my friend's roommate, who may or may not kill me if I don't bring her any food back."_ Sure she could simply remove a few details, but a question like that coming out of nowhere was a bit awkward.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ask such a personal question to makeyou so flustered." The young woman apologized.

"H-Huh? Oh no! It's not your fault at all! No need to apologize!" Misaka replied, still red-faced and moving her hands defensively.

" _S-She's such a nice lady...and here I am, messing up with my words."_

"Umm...actually, I'm just getting a few things for me and my roommate." Misaka face-palmed internally for how easy it would've been to just respond like that the first time.

"Ah I see, well that's great for you dear. You're very kind-hearted to be shopping for your roommate." The lady smiled brightly.

Misaka could feel a sweat drop coming down her face.

"A-Ah yes, that's exactly the reason why I'm here. I just love helping out my roommate." She said with the biggest nervous smile on her face. There was no way she could tell this poor young woman of her own ulterior motives.

"But seriously, I'm sorry if I made things awkward. You probably thought it would be embarrassing to tell me you were shopping for your relatives. It's a good thing you don't look older than possibly fifteen, or else you would've thought I was asking if you were shopping for your own family.

Misaka felt her heart drop, and her face was still as red as a tomato.

"U-U-U-Umm yeah, definitely-it's a good thing I w-w-w-wasn't thinking that way...hahahaha…" Misaka blurted out, and then started to laugh sheepishly.

The young woman kept smiling, and as she was putting her groceries in her shopping cart, she then turned the other way, and it seemed like she was having trouble with something. There was a product at the top of the shelf, and it seemed as though she couldn't reach it.

"A-Almost there…" She reached and reached, but she still couldn't grab her desired item.

"U-Umm excuse me, do you need any help? Misaka asked.

The young woman looked at Misaka, quite distressed. "Ah, I believe I'm too short. I can't reach the box of muffins that are up there."

Misaka clenched her fist, and had a determined smirk on her face. "Don't worry, just leave it to me." And with that, she jumped up and swiped the box of muffins off the top shelf.

"Here you go miss." She said as she handed the box of muffins to the young woman.

"Thank you very much! I really owe you one!" She beamed; albeit a bit shy.

Misaka scratched her hair sheepishly. "Ah, really, it was nothing…"

It was actually very easy to do-Misaka herself wasn't exactly short for her age, but there were times where there were products of which were on the top shelf and she had to jump in order to get what she wanted. Being the Level 5 esper she was, this was a very simple thing to do, so she thought the praise she was getting was very unnecessary.

The young woman looked at Misaka with wondering eyes. "You know, you remind me of another young teenager I tend to see in here."

Misaka stopped scratching her hair, and looked at the young woman a bit rattled. "Oh really?"

"Ah yes, I would sometimes bump into him here, and he would offer to get the items that I was unable to reach. He would also volunteer to carry anything that he thought seemed too heavy for me to carry."

"Huh...that was pretty selfless of him…the way he was willing to just help a person he didn't even know." Misaka commented.

"Very. Even though I would tell him that it was fine, he would still insist on helping me anyway."

"Wow…" The way this young woman described the actions of this man, reminded Misaka of Kamijou Touma. He was the type of person who'd be willing to help someone out, even if he didn't get anything in return. That was just the kind of person he was, and that's what she admired the most about him. Of course she also saw him as a very stubborn person, and that he should really stop doing so many selfless things, especially on his own. The more he planned on doing that, the more she would worry about him.

Now that she thought about him, the young man that this woman described _definitely_ reminded her of Kamijou Touma.

" _Wait a minute...this is the same convenience store Touma goes to...and the way she talked about how selfless this person is…"_ Misaka was finally starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together. The person she was talking about was definitely Kamijou Touma.

" _I can't believe she's talking about that guy! Oh wait...maybe it isn't him...I'm sure there are tons of nice young male teenagers who help out fellow shoppers."_

The young woman giggled to herself. "Ah, I remember the one time I had asked him to carry a large pack of paper towels, and as he was walking towards the cart, the bag had somehow ripped and the towels went all over the place. What luck, right?"

" _Yup, it has to be him."_ There was no doubt in her mind now. She was most certainly talking about Kamijou Touma.

"Don't you agree?" She had asked.

"Y-Yeah...that's quite some luck…" She said, a little bent down with sweat coming down her face. This lady was nice, but she kept saying things that made her feel awkward.

"I know right!?" The young woman suddenly put her hands together, and her eyes startle to sparkle. It was as if she had seen the most beautiful sunrise in the world.

"He was so sweet and kind...so adorable! I feel like he would make a great husband to almost any girl!"

Misaka started to blush, and look the other way. "Y-You don't say…"

"But, as I was saying before, I was just thinking that you and that young man were very similar, in the fact that you are both kind-hearted people, who love helping others."

"Aww, there's no need for flattery. That's just what people do you know." Misaka beamed.

"I see, I see. I recently just moved to this city, and I was simply amazed at how nice some people can be. This city really is a wonderful place to live in."

"W-Well I'm glad you like it here." Misaka gave a nervous smile. This woman, while nice, is very lucky to be unaware of all the possibly dangerous events that could happen in this city. It's impressive that she found this city to be tranquil at all, who knows-something dangerous could happen at this very convenience store right now. There's no telling what might happen when you live here.

The young woman had giggled again. Whenever this girl would laugh in any form, Misaka knew it would mean something she would regret.

"S-Something funny miss?" Misaka knew it was a bad idea to ask, but she did so anyway.

"I was just thinking that you and that young man would make the perfect couple."

Misaka really did not expect her to bring up Touma again, and she started to blush, very profusely. Just why did she have to talk about him again? And she even said they would make the perfect couple!? Will she not rest, until her heart had permanently shut down? She wished that this woman would just move on to a different topic already.

"W-W-W-What!? No no no no no! I barely even know this person you're talking about, and well umm-I wouldn't be-well-umm-well-I'm sure he wouldn't-well-" She murmured, as she was fidgeting with her hands.

The young woman then proceeded to laugh again. "Aww...no need to be so embarrassed. I was just joking…"

Misaka was starting to find this woman to be very frustrating-especially when it came to personal questions, and what those questions did to her emotions.

" _I-I'm a fourteen year old girl dammit! Stop asking me such questions…"_ She looked like she wanted to cry inside.

"Hahaha...well I believe I have bothered you long enough, I'm going to move onto a different aisle." She informed.

"Oh umm...it was nice talking to you…" At least, that's what Misaka thought, up until a few minutes ago.

"Oh, and umm, by the way…" She glanced at Misaka and gave her a serious look.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sure...that he would like you…"

Misaka could suddenly feel her heart race. "W-What?"

"Well, bye bye!" The young woman, with a cheery face waved at Misaka and proceeded to move on to a different aisle.

There stood Misaka; just astounded at how long the conversation had lasted and how side-tracked she had gotten from her original objective. From the amount of very difficult questions she had to answer today-she just wanted to go home. And what was that about 'he would like you', how would she know that anyway? She decided to not press on the matter anymore, and just focus on shopping.

"Alright umm...let's see...I basically got enough breakfast for both me and Index-all I need is to get some milk, a couple of snacks, and I think I'll be good for the week." And with that Misaka proceeded to head over to the snack aisle, which just happened to be right next to the aisle she had been previously in.

Oh and if you were wondering, she made an effort to check the aisle first, and make sure the young woman she had been talking to before wasn't there.

She made another satisfied grin as she picked a bag of chips off the shelf. "Hehehe...I didn't even look again-I just went into the next aisle, and I managed to find what I was looking for. Seriously, when I tell him this, he's going to be super pissed-" Once she put the bag of chips into the shopping cart, she had stopped speaking, and stopped moving.

She thought back at what that woman had said, on how they would make the perfect couple.

Naturally, this led to her blushing again, but she had to wonder...

" _I wonder...if he's thinking about me right now…"_

She shook her head in denial. "N-No...I shouldn't be thinking about that stuff. I should just get my groceries and leave." The longer she was in this store, the more she felt like her emotional state wasn't going to collapse.

"Now all I need is milk and I'm outta here!" Once she said that, she headed over to the area of the store, that held the products that needed to be refrigerated.

Once she saw the milk, she grabbed it, and placed it in the cart. She also decided to pick up a few water bottles as well.

And for those of you were wondering (yet again), she made sure to get the right brand this time.

"Finally! I'm finished!" She wiped some sweat from her forehead. Who knew shopping at a convenience store took so much out of you.

"Well now all I have to do is pay and I can finally leave!" Misaka headed over to the counter, and once she finished placing all of her groceries on the counter, she received her total.

"That'll be 3,338 yen." The cashier said.

"Okay." And once she went to grab her wallet, she noticed something very wrong.

"Umm...excuse me." She checked her pockets once more, but she couldn't seem to find her wallet.

" _...I didn't bring my wallet!?"_ She looked over at the cashier with a very worried face.

"U-Umm just a minute…" She once again, checked all of her pockets, but still couldn't find her wallet. She could've swore she brought it with her when she left, otherwise she wouldn't even be here in the first place.

" _Wait, now that I think about it, when I woke up this morning all I did was check the fridge. I then talked to Index about the food situation, and then hurried out the door…"_ She then realized the mistake she had made when recalling those events.

" _...did I seriously just leave and not bring anything with me at all!?"_ In retrospect, Misaka couldn't believe how good her luck had been, all for it to be ruined by a dumb mistake she had made.

"Umm, I don't want to rush you but…" The cashier was starting to become impatient.

"Oh, well...you see…" Misaka wasn't too sure how to explain to the cashier that she currently didn't have any money on her at all.

" _Maybe, I should use my electricity to mess with the price scanner…"_ She _wanted_ to do that, but there was no way she would able to get away with making the items she had brought with her to all amount to a price of zero.

It would seem like she would have to tell the truth.

"Actually...well...I apparently don't have any money on me so-"

"-I'll pay for everything she bought."

"What?" Misaka turned around, and fortunately, it was the young woman who she was talking to earlier.

" _It's her again!?"_

"Y-You're going to pay? Are you sure?" Misaka asked.

"Of course. I told you I would pay you back." She said, with a wink.

" _...that was a really bad pun."_ Misaka thought to herself. But still, she was grateful, this means she wouldn't have to come home to Index with no food at all, and she was not mentally prepared for that.

"Thank you so much! You seriously don't know how much this means to me...hahaha…. _seriously_ …" Misaka uttered that last part with much relief.

-TOARU-

And so with that, Misaka was able to bring everything she bought home with her, and what welcomed her was an unbelievable sight.

She saw Index, and she was hunched over, and a mysterious blue aura was coming from her body.

"Umm...are you okay?" Misaka asked; greatly concerned. As if on cue, she somehow immediately sensed the presence of Misaka's purchased items, and made a quick run and took half of Misaka's bags.

"F-Finally! Food!" Index immediately took out some chips from one of the bags and started eating. Misaka closed the door, and slowly collapsed onto the ground. She wasn't necessarily physically tired-more so mentally.

"Whew...at least I was able to get some food…" Her face then turned into a frightened one.

"Just imagine if I had gone to a supermarket for shopping...if just a convenience store leaves me this winded...I wonder how I would do in there." In truth, this was the first time she had gone shopping, but had felt so tired by the time she had gotten back.

But now that she was finally home-well Touma's home, she could finally feel at ease, and not have to converse with any more adults who ask her personal questions.

"Hey, Short Hair." Index called. Misaka looked over to her.

"W-What is it?" Misaka made sure to keep her ground when she said that. But to her surprise, Index was looking the other way, and was handing her one of the bags of chips she had recently purchased-and it looked as though she had opened it too.

"T-Thank you, you're probably hungry…." Index said, while blushing, but still made an effort to not face her at all. Misaka was completely baffled at what Index was doing right now.

In response, she showed her a smile. "Thanks Index." And with that, she took the bag of chips and started to eat as well. She thought back to the young woman who had helped her out today, and it was amazing how lucky she was to run into her back there.

She then remembered what she said about her and Touma.

" _...we would make a good couple huh…"_ She thought, and with that, she made an earnest smile.

"That would be nice…"

"Short Hair…"

"Hmm?"

Index showed Misaka one of the grocery bags, and it looked to be empty already.

"You ate it all already?!" Misaka yelled.

 **Wow, seemingly Misaka had much better luck at the convenience store than poor old Kamijou Touma. (well at least, at certain parts). But hmm...how would she fare shopping at a supermarket...hmm...I feel like I'm foreshadowing a future chapter, but since I'm giving such obvious hints, it probably lost all of its meaning. B-But anyway, look forward to a new fanfiction coming out, along with this one. I'll give you a hint, the main character says his name, followed by "desu" when responding to his incompetent party members.**

 **...I love** _ **Satou Kazuma**_ **XD.**

 **Next Time: VI - The Unlikely Judgment Partnership: Shirai Kuroko and Kamijou Touma**


	6. VI - The Unlikely Judgment Partnership

_**Had to revise the chapter a bit, so if you read it before, I made some edits; mostly grammar and spelling errors. Sorry about that haha, I just want the best for my audience - D.O.G (I hate that acronym so much).**_

"So, Kamijou-kun? What are your friends like?" Wannai questioned the Level 0 high school student; gazing at him with curiosity. The three of them: Wannai, Awatsuki, and Touma were on their way to Judgment via Touma's request to witness Shirai Kuroko's "workplace".

"My classmates now...?" Touma sighed. He was _unbelievably_ exhausted by the number of questions that the two of them had been asking him ever since they left the school. It was not as if he was annoyed at them, he was just somewhat overwhelmed by how much they were interested in his life.

"Well, I guess to start with-there are my two friends at school: Pierce and Tsuchimikado." He looked towards the sky as they walked on the sidewalk. He wondered if Misaka had run into them yet - hopefully not, more so worrying for their safety rather than Misaka herself.

"So they are your fellow classmates I take it?" Awatsuki asked, placing her hand on her chin.

Touma nodded. They were indeed his friends, well, he believed they were anyway. Sometimes, especially in Tsuchimikado case, he wondered if they really _were_ his friends.

"May we meet them? I know you and your classmates are in the middle of a summer science project, but I'd very much like to meet these friends of yours!" Wannai chirped.

"Umm, how about...no," Touma concluded, as he stopped them from walking on to the street as cars were passing by rather quickly. There was no way in _hell_ he was going to let these kind, innocent girls he literally just met, meet with his friends; who Fukiyose Seiri told him that they were, by her words: "Perverted Fools". Apparently, Touma was branded that too, but recently Fukiyose had told him he was on the bridge of reaching "Accidental Perverted Fool". He considered that sort of a compliment, but it pissed him off that he was on the bridge of something he would unfortunately say was accurate. Instead he was labeled just like his friends are, which didn't annoy him _that_ much, but it wasn't true.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to..." Wannai said, looking quite sad. Touma noticed this of course.

"N-No! It's nothing personal, it's just that they uh...are just really...shy." He lied, putting his hands up. If anything, he didn't want to make the poor girl upset.

"R-Really?" Wannai asked with a bit of hope in her voice.

"Yeah, they're a bit uncomfortable around girls," Touma informed her, although that was far from the truth when it came to those two.

Wannai, had a breath of relief, hoping she hadn't intruded on personal ground. "Thank goodness. I was worried if I was being too annoying."

"What? No, of course not! If you were _trying_ to be annoying...you're sort of doing an awful job." Touma told her scratching his hair.

Wannai blushed, and look to the other side, appreciating the compliment, even if he wasn't trying to do so. Although, the adorable smile on her face wasn't really helping her hide her flushed face.

"Well, I suppose we wouldn't to make them uncomfortable Wannai-san," Awatsuki told her. They didn't want to intrude just because they were simply interested in meeting his friends.

"Ah, you're right Awatsuki-san." Wannai smiled at her friend, not wanting to pry into Touma's life that much. The road seemed clear of cars, so the three of them continued to walk across the street.

"Well, let's see, aside from those two, there's also my friend Himegami. She's mostly aloof, but we get along at least. Honestly, I sort of wish I hung out with her more, but we hardly ever see each-other other than at school." He informed them.

"Despite that, she does have this weird sense of humor at times. It's either self-deprecating, dark, or even towards me." He laughed once he said that, but then remembered that she had taken pictures of him in Sensei's bunny outfit.

Then again, that was all because his other friend Tsuchimikado; believed that it would be a nice "bonding" moment between him and Sensei if they were both wearing matching bunny outfits.

Why was he friends with them again?

"Your classmates seem to all be very interesting Kamijou-kun." Awatsuki commented.

"I'm starting to realize that myself…" He hasn't really had the time to reflect on the friends he has made over the past year. He was now just realizing how different each of them was, and how colorful their personalities were.

He wondered if that was a good or bad thing.

"What are your other classmates like Kamijou-kun?" Wannai asked as they continued walking on the path to Kuroko's office branch of Judgment.

"Other classmates?" Aside from his friends and Fukiyose, he hadn't really given much of his other classmates much thought. There's also the fact that he barely knows any of them, since he's hardly in school (the hospital could be his school for all he knew). The only person who he could say at the moment was his Sensei, but of cours,e that wasn't his classmate.

"Well, there's my classmate Fukiyose." He answered.

"What's she like?" Awatsuki asked.

"Eh, well, she sort of reminds me of Kuroko in a few ways: obnoxious, uptight, and doesn't really like me all too much. They both berate me on practically everything I do." Touma chided. Both of them were literally the same person in his eyes, though they do have their distinct differences. At least currently, Fukiyose was starting to treat him more like a friend after saving her life and being worried for her at the Daihasei Festival.

Also, she was his classmate, who he saw usually every day. That would also contribute.

With the way he and Kuroko's relationship had been proceeding once this bet had started, it doesn't seem like they'll ever be on friendly terms. If he had to pick between the two of them, he would probably pick to hang out with Fukiyose rather than Kuroko. After all, he'd rather pick his poison. Even if the choices were both not that great.

"Oh Kamijou-kun, don't sound so negative about it. I'm sure they both care about you." Wannai reassured him. He liked that, it was nice to have someone be so positive to him for a change.

"Thanks. Well, I can sort of see that for Fukiyose. Kuroko though, I don't see how that'll become a thing, considering how much she loves Misaka, and I basically took her spot." He told her. "Besides, umm, if you didn't see it this morning, she sort of slammed a tray in my face."

Awatsuki's face turned a shade of blue, as she recalled that is what happened in the cafeteria earlier.

"A-Ah yes. That did happen, Wannai-san was not paying attention, but I did happen to see…" Awatsuki relayed, as she was really surprised at how he was still in perfect condition after that. "I'm surprised to see that you're relatively unharmed Kamijou-kun."

"Trust me, I've had worse." He replied. Not too proud saying it either.

"Oh, my." Wannai was somewhat shocked, but then retained a face of reassurance.

"Well… ah… t-these things take a while haha…" Wannai said, as she awkwardly laughed. Touma wanted to laugh at that honestly too - even she felt not so confident in their relationship developing in any way.

"But anyway, Kuroko seemed worried about your friend earlier," Touma remembered. "You don't think she's in any kind of danger do you?"

"Ah, I was just thinking about too. I... was hoping you wouldn't bring that up actually, I'm starting to become concerned." Wannai worried.

"She told us she would come right back after taking care of some errands. But then again, normally whenever she has errands to run, she notifies us through texts to make us not worried." Awatsuki informed.

"And well, it's been two hours since we've even heard from her. " Wannai confirmed. It was not like Kongou-san to not message them after so long. Normally she would send the two of them all sorts of texts, ranging from pictures, or simply just telling them about her day. "We've sent texts, but she hasn't read them yet. All it says is that they have been sent."

"I do hope Kongou-san is alright. She's a bit passionate sometimes, but she's really sweet and kind and our friend." Awatsuki relayed, to which Wannai nodded to. Touma placed his hands in his pockets and started to process all this information.

" _If she hasn't been able to text them back like usual routine, then she is definitely in some kind of danger. She could've run into a corrupt esper or even magician. Her phone could have potentially been damaged and that would explain why she hasn't been able to text Wannai and Awatsuki"._ Touma thought to himself, quite worried about her current condition. He glanced over to Awatsuki and Wannai, who looked quite pale and were probably thinking of all the worst-case scenarios that could've happened to their friend.

" _I'm guessing this is what Kuroko was worried about earlier, and why she was so eager to head to Judgment. Maybe something came up over there. No, that wouldn't be it, it's not like she received an alarm back at the cafeteria. Could she just have a hunch, or maybe it'll actually come up when we get there?_ He glanced back over to them. Clearly, they were concerned, and understandably so.

"Cheer up," He gave them both a thumbs up. "Given that she goes to Tokiwadai, surely she can handle herself, right? I'm sure even if she's in danger she could handle it with ease."

Despite knowing very little about the current situation revolving around Kongou Mitsuko, he at the very least wanted to get their morale up.

"A-Ah of course. She is a Level 4 Esper after all." Awatsuki looked over to Wannai. "We shouldn't worry Wannai-san."

"You're right Awatsuki-san." Wannai placed her hand on her chest. "She wouldn't want us to worry about her after all, that's the kind of person she is."

"See, there you go," Touma commented on their resolve. He was happy that he was able to get their spirits up.

"Ah, we're here," Awatsuki said, as she pointed to the Judgment 177 Office building, and once that happened the three of them stopped in front of the place. For something Kuroko had described to be so special, it didn't seem all that special to Touma. It was a building of five stories and looked similar to that of an everyday apartment to his eyes. He had expected Judgment to be a more grand-like place, but it seemed a lot different than what he imagined.

"So, this is Judgment?" Touma asked, looking up at its top floor.

"Yes. Ah! I'm sorry, I suppose I never really informed you on that this is just the branch Kuroko is enlisted in." Awatsuki apologized.

"Oh no, it's fine. I was actually worried that I was going to need to navigate through like an organization or something." Both Wannai and Awatsuki smiled. They really appreciated how laid back and kind of a person he is.

"Still, I'm here - not sure how to approach this actually. Do I just walk in and say: "Hey, I'm Kuroko's roommate, can I stay for tea and cookies"? I have a feeling I'm going to die if I go in there without a good reason." Touma told them. Instead of talking about his friends, they _really_ should have been thinking of a way to let Touma gain access to Judgment.

"Ah, that's a good point." Awatsuki agreed, but before she could suggest an idea of what they could do; she sighted someone coming out of the building.

"Oh, dear… Saten-san, why haven't you called me…?" A girl with short black hair wondered as she exited the building, looking at her phone.

"Ah, Uiharu-san?" Wannai asked.

"Hm?" The short black hair girl glanced over and saw Wannai and Awatsuki, and had walked over.

"Ah, Wannai-san, and Awatsuki-san." Uiharu bowed. "Good afternoon."

"Yes, to you too." Awatsuki bowed in response, as did Wannai. Through Kuroko, Uiharu was good friends with Wannai and Awatsuki. And they have hung out together on several occasions as well.

"It's nice to see you three again." Uiharu said but then realized she just said "three" instead of two. "Three? Ah…"

She looked over and saw the slightly taller high school student who was accompanying both Wannai and Awatsuki.

"Umm… I don't believe I know you actually." Uiharu acknowledged. He did look quite familiar though.

Touma put his hand out for a handshake. He felt like he's seen her hang around Misaka before, so they must be friends. It would be impolite to not introduce himself. "Name's Kamijou Touma. I'm one of Misaka and Kuroko's friends."

"Kamijou...Touma? Ah, so you're Kamijou-kun?" Uiharu asked, shaking his hand in return.

"Wait, you know who I am?" Touma was surprised. Then again, he probably shouldn't, perhaps Misaka had mentioned him to her before.

"Shirai-san told me to be wary of you. She said you were: "The Troglodyte Who Is A Bane To Her Existence". Also, a huge pervert." Uiharu told him. Granted, she didn't seem to believe it full heartedly, but the pink sweater was not helping.

"Figures," Touma muttered. If his reputation wasn't bad enough, it was spreading even _outside_ school grounds.

"Well, that is not true Uiharu-san. Kamijou-kun is a very kind person." Wannai disagreed.

"And dresses nice too. He looks cute in his pink sweater." Awatsuki added.

Touma looked like he was about to cry out of tears of joy. "Wannai-san, Awatsuki-san, you're too good to me."

It was official. Whenever he ran into trouble, he was going to find a way to contact them to act as the mediators.

"...wait, I'm not sure I agree with that last part." He had forgotten he was _forced_ to wear a pink sweater. In fact, he even _forgot_ he had it on in the first place. Although, that explained why he was getting weird looks from people ever since he had left the school.

Awatsuki giggled. "Oops, sorry Kamijou-kun, you just look very adorable wearing that."

Maybe he would hold on trying to find a way to contact them whenever he was in trouble. They might do more harm than good.

"Anyway, how have you been Uiharu-san?" Wannai asked.

"I've been well, thank you," Uiharu replied. "I was just going to meet up with Saten-san. What are you three doing out here?"

Wannai and Awatsuki explained the situation to Uiharu: such as the switching of roommates, Touma wanting to get into Judgment and etc.

"Ah, I see. No wonder Shirai-san had been so moody today. You've been the source." Uiharu said.

"Hey, I've been trying to get along with her! Maybe if she was more like you and my friends over here, we could establish a friendship." Touma crossed his arms; disappointed in Kuroko's disability to get along with him.

"Is there a way you would be able to show him around, Uiharu-san?" Awatsuki asked.

Uiharu placed her hand on her chin; looking quite indecisive. "Hmm… well, I suppose if he just wants to look around, it wouldn't be a problem. Although, I don't know how Konori-senpai would feel about this."

"Please Uiharu-san? Kamijou-kun would really appreciate it." Wannai pleaded.

"Well, I suppose I can try." Uiharu decided. "You don't seem as bad as Shirai-san said, especially with that cute sweater."

"Thank you, Uiharu-san." Wannai appreciated. Touma, while happy, was also not very pleased.

"Ugh...you too?" Touma lamented. While he was busy feeling saddened by his attire situation, Awatsuki had come close to his ear and had whispered something.

"Well, we hate to depart, but we're going to go take a look for Kongou-san."

Touma nodded. After all, it'd probably help if they were to split up. They also didn't want to let Uiharu know, considering they weren't even sure if something had happened to Kongou.

"Right. Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it." Touma said to them, to which they smiled in response.

"Hopefully we'll run into each other again," Wannai said, looking somewhat red.

"Oh yeah, I hope so," Touma said, who also blushed. He's never met someone who was genuinely interested in him before and was very kind too. Although, she still saw her as a doting mother, to which made him embarrassed.

"Well, ahem, Wannai-san, shall we go?" Awatsuki lightly tapped her friend's shoulder.

"What? Ah, I'm sorry. Yes, let's go." Wannai said, looking a little flustered. They bowed and then headed in the opposite direction, making sure to wave them goodbye.

"Man, Misaka and Kuroko could learn a thing from those two…" Touma trailed off.

"Right?" Uiharu agreed but felt guilty saying it. "Ah, but don't tell Misaka-san or Shirai-san I said that."

"Lips sealed," Touma promised.

Uiharu giggled. "Well, then I'll show you up to the office."

Touma nodded, and they both entered the building. It was quite dark on the first floor, so Touma had trouble navigating around the various empty boxes, that were scattered about. This was a norm for the Judgment Office, as so many shipments came into the office, and it was quite hellish to organize them. Luckily he had Uiharu with him, and she practically had the mapping of the first floor ingrained in her memory.

"The building, unfortunately, doesn't have an elevator. We'll have to take the stairs." Uiharu instructed.

"Fine by me," Touma said, not really caring about it that much. Uiharu located the stairs and Touma followed suit.

While the place was not as he expected, Touma still found it to be a decent looking building. Aside from the boxes, he found the place to look very neat and tidy. Clearly, cleaning management is a thing around here; the walls were free of dust, and I'm sure if the boxes were organized or removed the place would look amazing.

They walked up the stairs in silence, not until Uiharu sighed. She found it hard to walk up the stairs with so many things on her mind.

"Something wrong?" Touma asked, wanting to break the silence.

"Ah, it's nothing. I was just wondering about my friend." Uiharu answered.

"Are you talking about Saten Ruiko?" Touma queried.

Uiharu pointed at Touma as if he was on a game show and had just won the 1st place prize. "Ah, yeah! Wait, how did you know?"

"Misaka and I were talking about her yesterday actually," Touma revealed.

"Well yeah, it's about her. She hasn't been responding back to me lately. It's not like we had a fight or anything, it's just that she hasn't responded back to me at all. It's starting to concern me." She confessed.

"Oh, that. She's probably busy binge-watching anime." Touma answered. From what Misaka told him yesterday, Saten Ruiko had really gotten into watching anime, so she was most likely using her summer break to watch all the anime she can.

Although, this would be at the expense of not spending any time with her best friend.

"What?" Uiharu let out a breath of relief. "Oh, I see. I-Is that what she's doing? I knew it… that's all she's been doing lately."

"Ever think about joining her?" Touma asked, with genuine curiosity. Maybe she wanted to watch anime with her friend?

"Well, it's not like I don't _like_ anime, or that I don't want to watch it with her. I just miss when we used to do other things. I guess I'm just feeling down about it."

"Hm…" Touma hardly knew the relationship between the two, but from what Misaka had said about them, they were very close. He would like to help these two out, but he figured he should focus on the Kongou Mitsuko situation first, considering that one was more urgent.

"Oh yeah, by the way, this has been bugging me for a while. What's the deal with that flower headband on your he -"

"We're here," Uiharu announced as she interrupted him from finishing his question.

" _I guess I won't be getting the answer to that question."_ Touma thought to himself, a bit disappointed.

When the two of them finally entered the room, it was definitely like that of an office setting, Once again, Touma noticed the various boxes that were placed throughout the entire building. He did, however, spot Kuroko at her workstation; looking as though she was inspecting something on the computer.

"Shirai-san!" Uiharu called out. Hearing her voice, Kuroko turned her head around to say hello back.

"Ah, Uiharu-san you're ba -" Those words were silenced once her eyes had locked on to the man who had been standing next to her. Yes, that man who she had labeled as "The Bane Of Her Existence".

"Yo, Kuro -" Out of the corner of Touma's eye, he spotted one of her darts come rapidly at his direction. The dart had barely missed him, and had struck the door instead. As Touma was used to this treatment, he was more so unamused. He figured she wasn't _completely_ serious with the dart throwing; he's aware Kuroko had amazing accuracy and she wasn't planning on actually throwing her dart at him.

After throwing the dart though, Kuroko was practically hunched over with rage and was breathing angrily.

Uiharu, however, was _completely_ stunned.

"A-Ah…" Uiharu could barely even speak from what had just happened.

"V-Vicious…" Touma muttered.

Kuroko clicked her tongue, and then exited the room. Coincidentally, Konori Mii, the chief of the branch, happened to just enter the room as Kuroko had left.

"Ah, Uiharu-san, you've returned," Konori said, as she walked up to the two of them. "And oh? Who is this?"

Uiharu was still stunned. Touma lightly nudged her shoulder, which meant: _"Hey, your turn…"_

"Ah, well…" Uiharu then explained the situation she had just been informed about to Konori. It was a good thing she had gotten out of that stunned state so quick-otherwise, Touma would have had to explain the entire situation to her _himself_.

That wouldn't have gone well at all.

"A simple tour of Judgment? Well, nothing has been assigned today so it shouldn't be much of a problem," Konori then had an exalted look on her face. "Were you thinking of joining Judgment?"

"No, no no no no! I just wanted to see what my roommate does." That was pretty much it for him. He had no plans on _actually_ joining the organization, after all, he already has enough on his plate.

They moved outside the working room and headed to a more free area, that wasn't obscured with boxes.

"Well, you're roommate just exited the room. I can go and get her if you want." Konori suggested.

Touma waved his hands in defense rapidly. "No! I'll just wait for her to umm… come back."

"Oh, well, please, sit down in that chair. Normally I wouldn't allow this sort of thing, but since reports seem to be less frequent, why don't I get some tea ready?" Konori asked.

"Sure, that'd be pretty nice," Touma said as he sat down in a chair, as did Uiharu. While they were seated, Konori was about to exit the room to make them some tea, but then noticed something strange about Touma.

"So umm… well…" Konori trailed off.

"Yeah?" Touma asked, curious as to what she wanted.

"So, you're a fan of Gekota just like Misaka huh?

"What?" He then had forgotten once again that he was wearing one of Misaka's old sweaters, and this particular one had the Gekota logo smack dab in the middle.

"No no no, let me explain: there was nothing else for me to wear, honest. I don't care about Gekota, you have to believe me!" He cried out.

"Sure…" Konori remarked, and couldn't help but hold in a laugh. From what she could infer, he seemed to be the same age as her, so it was kind of silly seeing someone his age wearing something so childish.

"I am not joking! I'm serious!" He countered.

Konori giggled and ignored his attempts to deny her, and then left the room.

Touma sulked, realizing he could not win this fight of his. Uiharu had the urge to want to pet his shoulder but was too busy working on stuff on the lounge's computer at the moment.

The table they were seated in was quite big. The room they were in was something like that of a lounge, and it was quite incredible, to say the least. There were six seats on each side, and there was even a couch all the way to the left.

Touma sat on the far left seat, while Uiharu sat in the middle; next to him. They waited a few minutes, but then Konori arrived back with the tea she had decided to make for them.

"Here you two go." Konori handed their tea, to which they both took with gratitude.

"Thank you Konori-senpai." Uiharu thanked, and decided to take a sip of her tea; to which she regretted as it was really hot.

"Ah, I burned my tongue!" Uiharu cried out, although it was somewhat hard to comprehend what she said.

"Uiharu-san, you should blow on it first!" Konori-senpai warned.

"I-I know…sorry." Uiharu regretted, and proceeded to simply blow on it, before taking another sip. While Uiharu was sipping her tea (making sure to blow it this time), she was working on some files for Judgment on the computer.

"Is this where you always work?" Touma implored, taking a sip of his tea.  
"Ah, no," She told him. "We actually have an office, this is just the lounge for guests and members."

Just at that same moment, Kuroko came into the lounge - looking quite upset, and then lazily placed her bottom on the chair, next to Uiharu with a water bottle in her hand.

"Oh, hello Shirai-san." Uiharu greeted.

"Uiharu. Why did you bring _him_ in here." Kuroko questioned angrily, as she pointed to him. Touma thought it'd be a great idea to just not say anything. That way he wouldn't get darts thrown at him again.

"He just wanted a tour of Judgment. He didn't ask for anything else, and besides, he seems nice enough. Shirai-san, aren't you overreacting a little bit?" Uiharu asked.

"Yeah, Shirai-san, aren't you overreacting a little bit?" Touma repeated Uiharu's words in a humorous tone. He's aware he wasn't going to say anything, but he just couldn't help himself this time.

"Tch, whatever," Kuroko muttered, and then had seen that Konori had seated herself in front of them. "I'm not going to bother talking to someone wearing such a childish sweater."

"You!" Touma cried out. She forced him to put that sweater on, and she knows it. Touma wanted to throw his cup of tea so badly at her face, but since Konori went out of her way to make them tea (and well, it wasn't his cup), he decided to just let it go.

Kuroko wanted to insult Touma more but then decided to ask Konori an important question.

"Konori-senpai, are you sure didn't gather any new intel on Kongou Mitsuko's location?" Kuroko implored.

"Shirai-san, I already told you earlier that nothing came up. Uiharu checked, and she was still at her home, she wasn't anywhere else." Konori informed her.

"I-I see…" Kuroko said; looking quite disappointed. She was hoping her hunch was correct, but it seemed like Kongou was perfectly fine.

But she couldn't help shake this feeling that she wasn't. She didn't like her that much, but she wouldn't want anything bad to happen to her.

" _Nothing turned up for her too huh? Figures."_ Touma thought to himself. Kuroko most likely asked when she arrived at Judgment about Kongou Mitsuko's whereabouts. Meaning, he probably wouldn't get much information either.

It still didn't hurt to ask though.

"Umm, actually, Konori, I wanted the ask that same question. Wannai and Awatsuki seemed really worried about their friend Kongou. I was wondering if you had heard anything about her recently." Touma requested.

" _He's asking about her too…?"_ Kuroko thought to herself. She was surprised he knew about Kongou Mitsuko "disappearance". Although, last time she saw him, he was with Wannai and Awatsuki, so that explained why he knew about her situation. She figured he was only asking this question because two pretty girls asked him too, so she turned her head the other way; having a lackadaisical expression on her face.

It's not like he himself actually cared if she was in danger or not.

"Hmm… well, I suppose Uiharu could check her location again. The last time we checked she was back at her home." Konori stated. "Uiharu-san, would you mind checking again?"

"Sure thing Konori-senpai." Uiharu was in the middle of organizing some documents, but checking on Kongou Mitsuko wouldn't take too long.

"Her friends told me her actions of today had been unusual than normal. She hasn't contacted them at all in the past two hours, and it's making them worried. Something tells me that this isn't something we shouldn't look into."

Kuroko, irritated, took another quick look at Touma and was flabbergasted to see the expression on his face.

His face had been filled with sweat. As if he could sense a murder was in the process of occurring.

" _He's that worried about the situation…?"_ Kuroko thought to herself, once again shocked. Apparently, he was quite concerned with what could happen to this middle school girl he hardly knew. Touma sensed that someone had been staring at him so he took a quick glance at Kuroko; to which she quickly turned around, not wanting to look at his face.

" _I don't believe this… he actually cares?"_ Kuroko thought to herself. She shook her head violently. Of course not, she thought to herself. Any normal human being would, of course, be worried for one's safety. Even a troglodyte like him.

"Oh no!" Uiharu shouted out loud.

"Uiharu?" Kuroko looked over at her friend, confused.

"What's wrong?" Touma asked.

Uiharu looked like she couldn't form the words properly in her mouth. "K-Kongou-san's, location has… changed!"

Konori practically ran over to the other side of the table, "What…? But when we checked almost ten minutes ago, you said she had been stationed at her home!"

"Well ten minutes ago, she _was_ at her home, but now her location is somewhere else. Far from home in fact!" Uiharu cried out.

"I knew it," Kuroko commented. She had a feeling back at the cafeteria that something wasn't right, and it seemed her hunch was actually correct.

"Uiharu-san, where is she now?" Konori asked.

"Her current location…" She trailed off and checked Kongou Mitsuko's new location on the monitor. "Apparently, Kongou-san is in a large sewer, near the entrance to Academy City."

"A sewer? Why there out of all places?" Konori wondered out loud.

"If that's the case, then it would make sense for why her phone wouldn't be working. It could have easily fallen into the sewer's waters." Touma explained.

"Also she's not alone… there's someone else there too." Uiharu pulled up another individual on the monitor. His appearance looked like someone who was in his early 20s, and he had messy long black hair.

"His name is Kazuma Riot. He's a man of age 22; height of 185cm and is a Level 4 Esper." Uiharu informed everyone.

"So… he's the bad guy I take it." Touma guessed. He figured _he_ was the one behind Kongou Mitsuko sudden disappearance. Why else would they be the only two people in that sewer?

"Something is still bothering me though…" Uiharu said out loud.

"What is it?" Kuroko asked.

"Assuming that she _wasn't_ at her house the entire time, then why was her location fixed to her home?" Uiharu wondered. Both Touma and Kuroko thought that was strange as well. If she had been away from her home, then her location should've automatically been picked up to where she was now using Uiharu's system. After all, Uiharu was considering to be one of the - if not _the_ best when it comes to using computers.

Just why was it set to her home? And just why did it change now all of a sudden? If they were trying to keep it so that her location was hidden, why bother having them find out at all?

"Could there be an… accomplice?" Kuroko asked. "Generally speaking, if this Kazuma person is working with someone else, perhaps showing the location now is some type of ransom-or a message?"

Touma placed his fist in his hand, agreeing with Kuroko's claim. "That's it! It must be someone he's working with, who has an ability that is specifically used for hacking. The only reason the location would change now is if they _wanted_ us to come to _them._ "

"That would make sense. It's not like my esper ability is primarily hacking-it's something completely different." Uiharu commented. She was an expert at using computers, yes, but that was just from her own skill. If someone's esper ability were to be specialized in advanced hacking not by normal humans, then it may overpower Uiharu's natural talent.

"But, Uiharu-san's hacking abilities are phenomenal. Someone being able to outsmart her system is impossible." Konori pondered.

"Well, that's the only conclusion right now. What else would explain her change in location?" Touma questioned.

"As much as I hate to admit it…" Kuroko sighed. "His point is indeed valid."

"Aha! I thought something was strange!" Uiharu looked at the back of her monitor and pulled off some sort of sticker stuck to it. It was in the shape of a cross.

"What the hell is that?" Kuroko asked.

"I don't know… but it was attached to the computer that I use in the office too. Although, that one was a different shade of red than this one."

"Can I see that?" Uiharu handed Touma the dark red colored cross sticker and examined it.

 _"...This could potentially be a Magician's ability as well. Even though Magicians and Espers don't really see eye to eye… a hybrid maybe?"_ Touma thought to himself. It could be a case like with his friend Tsuchimikado who was also a hybrid of being Half Magician Half Esper. Having the powers of a Magician would explain why Uiharu couldn't find Kongou's true location at first, as she wouldn't know much about the abilities of a Magician.

"So… in short, Kongou-san's location was thought to be at her home, but in reality, she was at the sewer the entire time? Fighting against some man?" Konori asked.

"Seems like it," Kuroko confirmed. "All of what we figured out comes together quite nicely."

"So he's a Level 4 Esper? Then he's the same Esper level as both Kongou and Kuroko." Touma stated. If both Kongou and Kazuma were to engage in combat, then certainly they'd be on equal ground. Although, that's hypothetically speaking, not factoring in their weaknesses and the environment of a sewer. After all, he's not aware of Kongou's esper ability at all, so he wasn't sure if the sewer was the best place for her to fight in.

That just meant they had to get there as soon as superhumanly possible.

"I see…" Kuroko finished her water bottle and tossed it in the trash. "I'll be on my way then."

"You're heading out now Shirai-san? By yourself?" Uiharu asked, a bit worried.

"Yes, Uiharu," Kuroko answered her. "We don't have much time to lose, and besides, I can get there rather quickly anyway. I have a feeling Kongou Mitsuko is going to have trouble fighting in a sewer of all places…"

"Yes… but…" Uiharu was still a bit worried about sending Kuroko by herself. Given that it's the summer, most Judgment members aren't as active, so most likely Kuroko would be the only one taking on this case.

"Don't worry, Uiharu. It's not like I'll be by myself. You'll still be able to contact me, we're partners aren't we?" Kuroko told her as she pointed to the communicator in her ear.

Uiharu looked a bit worried but then gave her friend a small smile. Touma patted her head, causing her to become slightly flustered.

"You don't need to be worried, she isn't going alone!" Touma declared. "I'm going too!"

Konori looked at him with disapproval.

"Absolutely not.. We cannot just send a regular high school student to investigate this, you could be in serious danger!" Konori denied.

"I can't just let this go! I promised Wannai and Awatsuki everything would be fine, and I'm going to make sure their friend is safe!" Touma shouted.

"Like I said, you can't just interfere in Judgment matters!"

"Biribiri has probably helped out before, hasn't she? And she's not even a member of Judgment!"

Konori looked a bit stumped to who "Biribiri" was, but then remembered earlier when Uiharu explained the roommate situation, and she put two and two together.

"That's different. She's a Level 5 Esper; while we don't approve of her help, it's acceptable because of her rank. You're not a Level 5 esper, so we can't send you on this mission."

As Touma and Konori were in the midst of arguing, Kuroko just stared at Touma in both irritation and confusion. It just seemed odd to her; why was he so interested in saving the life of one he hasn't even met yet? She's aware that her "Onee-sama" was interested in the boy-much to her dismay anyway-meaning he had to have _some_ good traits to his character. Obviously, that's evident right now, but she just wanted to know why.

"Why do you want to go so bad? Clearly, you have no relation to this at all!" Kuroko questioned.

"You expect me to just walk away while I know that someone could get killed?" Touma challenged. "Just forget this happened? Act like I had no part in this, despite the fact that I have the power to help? That shouldn't even be something that should cross _anyone's_ mind!"

"Oh please, as if you…" Before Kuroko could finish, Touma said something that caught her off-guard immensely.

"Besides… you could get killed too. And well… I don't want anything to happen to my new roommate." Touma finished.

His words left Kuroko silent. Not only was he worried about Kongou Mitsuko's life… he was….worried about her life as well? Worried that she wouldn't get out of this fight alive? Was he belliting her, thinking she couldn't handle saving Kongou and defeating Kazuma by herself?

Or did he actually… care about her wellbeing?

"I understand how you feel Kamijou-kun, really I do. But like Konori-senpai said, we can't just send a non-Judgment member to handle the situation, and it's not like we know much about you at all." Uiharu relayed.

Touma grunted. He wasn't just going to let these people tell him if he could save innocent lives or not. He would walk out this very building right now, if he wasn't going to get his way. Childish yes, but he's handled situations on his own before, and he was willing to do it again. Misaka had warned him about wanting to take on more than he could chew, but clearly, he wasn't going to get any help here.

"Well then, if you're not going to let me go, then I'll just-" Before he could finish his sentence, someone had cut him off.

"-Konori-senpai, Uiharu-san, let him ally with me on this mission."

Touma turned around to see who had interrupted his statement, and much to his surprise it was the teleporter esper who had slammed a tray in his face earlier this morning.

"What?" Touma was shocked. Literally, when he entered this building, she had thrown a dart that could have easily cut his face. Now she seemingly had no problems working with him, despite him not even being a member of Judgment?

"Wait, Kuroko, you _want_ me to ally with you?" Touma asked.

"Shirai-san?" Konori asked shocked.

"It really, _really,_ pains me to say this, but, he has a rather… impressive esper ability, that could be incredibly useful. Plus he seems to know his way around a fight, he would prove to be a tremendous help."

"Kuroko…" Touma said. He was actually quite moved Kuroko was actually on his side. Perhaps, what Wannai and Awatsuki had told him before could potentially come true.

"Alright, fine," Konori didn't like the idea, but it's not like they had a lot of time on their hands. She went over to a bin, and took something out of it, and made her way back to Touma, and put it on his arm.

"Judgment armband…?" Touma questioned, to which Konori nodded.

"Yes, if Anti-Skill were to show up, then we wouldn't want matters to become even more complicated. If you fake being a Judgment member, then surely there won't be any questions about you being there. I know it's a bit of a _drastic_ measure, but I just don't want them asking any uncomfortable questions. You could be labeled as either a victim or accomplice."

"Don't worry, I'll make sure this armband stays on. Besides, I've met with Anti-Skill before, there shouldn't be too many problems…" Touma recalled that during the situation with Sherry Cromwell, he had met with Yomikawa Aiho, one of the members of Anti-Skill, and they had assisted him in battle.

"Are you ready? Kamijou Touma?" Kuroko puts out her hand. She really didn't like the idea working with him, but he seemed willing to do anything in order to make sure a fellow student of hers, who he didn't even know in the slightest, was safe. He also wanted to protect her as well, which she was quite intrigued about. She was interested in his resolve, and she wanted to see how long it would last, before he ditched the scene in order to save his own life.

"Heh," Touma smiled. It seemed like she was willing to actually call him by his name-it was only fair to consent.

"I hope you are: Shirai Kuroko." He said as he shook her hand.

 **With Kuroko and Touma setting out to the sewer, will they be able to rescue Kongou Mitsuko? And will they be able to take out the unknown assailant known as Riot Kazuma?**

 **Next Time: VII - Deadly Fight In The Sewer I**

 **I'm so sorry for the long wait for this chapter. I guess I got a...little lazy? Sorry, I can't help it haha. Also, I was busy other things as well, such as real life, school and well, you know, normal things. I'll try to get more chapters out; at least be more consistent. I actually liked how this chapter came out; it's kind of a coincidence since well, this is the sixth chapter, and six is my favorite number haha. But man, was this a pain to write, I've checked over a few times, but there's still probably spelling or grammar mistakes. Also, uh, wasn't really sure how to have the Judgment thing play out actually. Even in the Railgun anime, they don't really explain how things work that well. It probably is explained rather well, but I'm just too slow and lazy to get it, so don't get mad if I wrote explained something wrong. I'd be a bit upset… I've only been a Toaru fan for like a year, give me a break lol.**

 **Anyway, 'till next time. Hopefully, I can get that chapter out as soon as possible. This one was pretty long after all.**


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